Broken Identity
by Raventhedarkgoddess
Summary: A meeting between two members of the team after a full year makes them see that they cannot live without each other, and they struggle for reform. But it's not easy to become the team they once were. To Absolutely Pointless. RaeRob
1. Broken

_Raventhedarkgoddess: One shot. Random, totally uninspired one-shot. I have nothing better to do with my time, I suppose....... Anyway, this is for you two, Libby and Morph. Hope it gives you both something to do to avoid the evils of reality. No flames about the R/R couple, I couldn't care less what you think of it....... Reviews welcome._

**Broken**

_**Robin.......**_

_I wanted you to know I love the way you laugh  
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away  
I keep your photograph; I know it serves me well  
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain_

_I just wish there was some way I could have told her before it was too late_, the miserable boy thought to himself, his face devoid of emotion, mask-like though he himself wore a mask no longer. It had been a year, a long hard year, as Dick Grayson, but the part of him that was still living was Robin. Robin was the one with all the dreams, with all the emotional pain.... Robin was the one that lay awake at night, dreaming of his team, of a girl in a blue cloak........

_Of the team I broke up. Of the team I left because I wanted a new life. Of the team I didn't realize I needed so much...... _He sighed, both Robin and Dick unable to handle the emotional stress it brought back. He had broken up with Starfire, had been completely prepared to leave....... And Raven had tried to hold him back.

_**"How could you even THINK of leaving us?" Raven's voice was shrill and near in his head again.**_

_**"I..... I don't know, Rae. It just.... feels right, ya know? I mean, I need to get out and have a life, friends...." Robin's voice trailed off. "I just don't want to be Robin anymore." Even in his own ears, even then, he had hated the excuse, had known Raven didn't buy it, could feel it in the way she stared at him........**_

**_"You need friends? You need friends?" She did not shriek. She spoke in a death-like whisper, one that made the skin on Robin's arms crawl. "You have the nerve to tell your team, who were also your friends and house mates, that you need a life and friends, when we've been here for you all this time?" She glared at him through her violet eyes. "You sure know how to make a person feel _needed, _Robin."_**

_**"I didn't mean it like that, Rae, I just......." Robin found himself tongue-tied. It felt so important then that she didn't go away mad, he couldn't stand to have her mad at him, not now, not when he needed her so badly. "We can keep in contact and everything, but the crime fighting days are over."**_

**_"That's not what you said when we formed. You said we were here, not for ourselves but for others, and that we would fight to the death. You said, Robin, to the whole team, that we were in it for others, that we were in it because we _cared _about this city. You were the one that held us together when Cyborg wanted to leave, when I wanted to leave...... And now you'd give us up for your own 'freedom'? Is that what you think we are, a trap to keep you here?"_**

_**"That's not it at all! You miss the point! I just want to be myself, to be Dick Grayson again, to have a life, a normal one...." Robin tried to make her understand, placed his hand on her shoulder, didn't fight to brush his black hair back so that he could avoid making sudden motions. "Just try to put yourself in my place."**_

_**"You can have a normal life. At least you're a full human." She stepped back, and his arm fell limp between them, green gloves still in the shape of her shoulder, still longing to hold it, to keep her there with him.........**_

_**"Rae, I didn't mean it like that........"**_

_**"Goodbye, Dick Grayson. This shall be your last moment here, I'm assuming." She eyed his suitcase in distain, with obvious pain that she refused written on her face. "I will miss only the Robin you carry with you." Her hands went up to his face, and they removed his mask. Suddenly everything was brighter for him, and the mask was laying in two pieces on the floor..... And Raven was gone. The soft swishing noise was all that was left of him.**_

_**She left behind only his shattered identity in the form of the two-pieced mask, and with that she left, in a sense he didn't understand just then, his heart beating and bleeding on the floor.**_

_Snap out of it, _snapped the part of his mind that commanded him through life, the part that was Dick Grayson and not the boy Raven would miss, not Robin. _You've still got work in the morning, and sitting here in front of the window mourning the past. That was then, this is now........_

_So why can't I just get over her? _Part of him, the Robin in him, heard one of the few times he had heard her laugh, the one time he had made her laugh with some corny joke. _And I loved that laugh. So why would I leave her?_

The wind rattled the windowpane in the dying sun. The question fell without answer into the devoid hole of his mind.

_Cause I'm broken when I'm open  
And I don't feel like I am strong enough  
Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome  
And I don't feel right when you're gone away_

_Why are you still letting her get the best of you? _Argued his modern self. _Give it up and get over her. She's not your girl anymore, and she never was. You didn't even say hello to her most days, and she ignored you as well. She was just sad to lose her home is all......_

_**"You can have a normal life. At least you're a full human." **Why would she say something like that, though? And why was she so set on missing only Robin, what about her home and family and friends.... What was different about me?_

The brilliance of the red sky caught him in all his misery. He stood up, his eyes catching something faded on his mirror.

An old photograph, faded and torn at the edges where he had held it so many times while trying to forget Robin, while trying to switch roles and lives so quickly and easily, while trying to do the impossible. Beneath that, on the dresser that refused to fit into his undersized bedroom, was a shredded mask, two pieces, torn directly down the middle. There he was, front and center, holding onto Starfire's hand, and Beast Boy and Cyborg were making faces at the camera, at the man who had come to take pictures of the 'heros' for the Jump City newspaper...

Off to one side was Raven. He could never stop looking at her, at her serious demeanor and the way she refused to touch any of them, standing clear inches away from Cyborg's shoulder, hood up, violet eyes piercing even in the faded color copy he had managed to obtain from the man. A single strand of her hair fell forward across her face, but she made no attempt to brush it away as the red stone set in her forehead cast tiny prisms of light into Robin's hair.....

_Those days are long gone, _he tried to tell himself again. _What is holding you back? Why can't you just let Raven Roth go already? She was never an important part of your life anyway: Burn the picture. It's Starfire you should still be thinking of. Quit acting so broken over a girl you didn't even know._

Robin looked at the shadows around him, at the blood-red light staining his walls, his ceiling........ "I'm all alone. I just need to get out of here." He quickly turned on his heel, slipped into a pair of worn street shoes at the door, and found himself fighting his way down the steps, past a dark-haired woman in her late thirties that had already identified her neighbor "Dick Grayson" as Robin of the Teen Titans: The team that had been broken up by it's leader, by him.

"I've got to get out of here." He shoved past her and ran, moved down the steps and out the door. He took the air in, gulped it in as if it could wash the pain he had been hoping to escape when he left Titans Tower away. _Raven could make this all better...... With her I wouldn't be so broken and lonesome......_

The blood-red light danced a pattern of small spots in his hair. Robin ran a hand over it, then caught sight of himself in the store window: He wheeled around, half expecting to find Raven to the reason for the dots. The area behind his shoulder contained only an empty, heavy air, and a fast-sinking sun.

"I'm just not strong enough to let it go, am I?" He started to walk, wasn't sure where he was going but liked the feel of his feet under him. "I should just go away again and never come back, somewhere where I won't have to think about her anymore....."

_Where could I go where that could happen? _Although Robin heard no answering thought in his head, his heart answered the question for him: _Nowhere. One shot at love: You had it and lost it._

Even out in the air, he could still see those piercing, lonesome eyes, staring after him, calling his name from both the photograph and from the scene in the Tower, could still feel Raven calling him, pulling him to her. The violet eyes rose up behind his own and refused to leave. Raven was all he could see: He walked faster, wondering how to escape an enemy when the enemy was his own mind and memory as a prisoner of his heart.

* * *

_**Raven........**_

_The worst is over now and we can breathe again  
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away  
There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight  
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain_

_Why? Why can't I just forgive him and move on? This shouldn't have marred my heart. Pain and death and suffering should never mark my heart, not because of something I do or something someone else does. _Violet eyes to the red sunset, Raven tried to ignore the pulsing of her heart speeding steadily as she conjured him up again, standing across from her, defenseless and helpless against her sudden rage.....

_**Her hands were around the mask. She couldn't help it, couldn't help the rage, was doing all she could to keep it down.... If a shreded identity is what he wants, then so be it, she had said to herself, preparing to shred his mask into two.**_

_**She had looked up into the most perfect pair of eyes she could have imagined. Electric blue and crisp, worn with wisdom behind them and yet somehow child-like. Had she not been in such a rage, she might have told him so. "Goodbye, Dick Grayson." She had glared at his suitcase before glaring at him. "I will miss only the Robin you carry with you." She knew he could never understand how much pain was within that statement: She could remember one laugh and plenty of good times with him. I almost liked him, she had found herself thinking.......**_

_**Her powers becoming almost impossible for her to keep at bay, Raven ripped the mask with hand power alone to avoid unleashing accidental energy, watched it fall to the floor, divided in a perfect half down the center, directly along the eye holes......**_

_**She was able to take the sight no more. She turned, heard her own cloak swish behind her, and then pulled up onto the steps, where she had comforted a crying Starfire and said her goodbyes to her friends, wishing them the best of luck in whatever they could do.**_

_**"There's no place in this world for a half human....." Raven had looked sadly at each of her friends, from Cyborg to Beast Boy to Starfire, all looking at her with tears in her eyes....... Only her violet eyes were able to remain unfeeling......**_

_**"We'll all make it through. You go out there and do whatever you can. Just get by without your powers, and no one has to know." Cyborg had taken her in his arms. "Take care, you're like a sister to us all, Raven. We're one big family....."**_

_Who Robin broke up, _Raven found herself snapping in the present. _I just need to forget him. The worst is over now. He's no big deal and he never was. He never will be, either, if I have anything to say about it. I can't cry for someone who wouldn't cry for me......._

_I don't cry for him. My heart just burns for him in a way I can't show..... _Everyone at the workplace thought her cold, unfriendly, a problem she had never had with the others. _He's the one that ruined your life. Why do you care about him so much?_

_If only I could have told him that I loved him..... But I can't love. So why do I keep caring? I can't show caring..... Why do I need him? Why do I care about him so much?_

It was a question Raven had asked herself over and over at night, when everything became quiet and she found that she could hardly think of anything but the friends soon to cloud her dreams. _Why do I care about him so much?_

"Why?" She let out a sudden outburst. It was more of a sound than a word for her anymore, at this rate anyway, and every time she said it, Robin flashed through her head. Robin kicking out, Robin trying to defend her, Robin trying to fight with Beast Boy for a remote, Robin's grin the only time he had ever made her smile, her own laugh without the forced hollowness behind it in her mind........

_Why? _An unanswerable question. The bane of her existence.

But it was also the only way she could bring back the home she longed for. "Why?"

_Cause I'm broken when I'm open  
And I don't feel like I am strong enough  
Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome  
And I don't feel right when you're gone away_

She stood up, her neck stiff from working long hours behind the desk, smiling for strangers and acting as if she was a normal girl, despite everything they thought of her, of her deliberate coldness and the way she avoided being close to anyone or anything. She hadn't used her powers in almost a year and seldom meditated: She had almost grown immune to the pain Robin had left in his wake, and as long as her emotions were kept in check she had no need to bother with her powers.

She felt her hand on the doorknob. The cold metal awakened her somewhat, opened her eyes a bit wider so that everything became slightly brighter, although her mood was not uplifted and she continued to frown at the metal door, glided down the steps and past the front desk, where a man gazed at her with thought, as if trying to figure out who she might have been before she had moved into the apartments in the dead of night almost a year before.

_Just a walk..... That's all I want is a walk. _The sky burned above her, made her eyes cast up to the dyed appearance of the white clouds. _Blood red, the color of all misery and hate, of woe and of the blood that keeps a person alive........_

She started to walk, her black skirt beating her legs in the breeze, catching up to her rhythmic stride and allowing her to move slowly, almost effortlessly, with no destination in mind but being outside of the four walls of her trapping apartment, away from the one small window that had kept her attention captivated for hours.

She felt like running, trying to fly, becoming a large black raven and seeking out her friends, shaking Robin by the neck for all the pain he had caused them all. _I can't fly, though. Dreams and wings and powers aren't a part of my life anymore._

Her violet eyes clouded over slightly with tears. _Don't cry. Forget it already. Forget HIM already..... The Titans are a thing of the past. _She stared off, blinked a few times, trying her hardest to avoid the emotional swell within her heart. She ducked into the shadows, away from the red light, and leaned on the bricks of one of the buildings.

Darkness coming on around her, she moved away from the wall, deciding to get a quick stroll in before the last of the setting sun left her all alone in the darkness. _Even though the place inside me is darkness and despair........._

The words came to her simply: _I'm broken and alone. This is my life now._

She didn't see the boy until she ran into him. He turned to her and she uttered a gasp. _Who...... There's no way this is........._

The electric blue eyes, worn down by the stress of average life, stared and locked on her violet ones. "Raven....."

_Cause I'm broken when I'm open  
And I don't feel like I am strong enough  
Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome  
And I don't feel right when you're gone away _

"Dick." _Where did he come from? _

_How can I really be seeing her after almost a full year? _"I didn't mean to bump into you. I had a lot on my mind, and...." In truth, he had been thinking about the way her eyes had looked when he had last seen her, had failed to notice her right in front of him.

"I'm glad to hear your life is treating you well, then," Raven said softly, not meaning a word of it. _I hope you're miserable, I hope this is just an act, I hope..... What do I hope? What is hope? _The questions spun around in her head, finding no outlet and no answer as she gazed at him.

"What about you?" He gazed at her. "And please..... Just call me Robin." He fidgeted now under the gaze of the eyes he had wanted to see so badly: Why did he like her so much, why HAD he longed to be here...? _She probably hates me now, _he thought sadly. It had been over a year since anyone had called him Robin, and we was beginning to wish that it were all people called him.....

"Alright, **Robin**," Raven hissed, throwing emphasis on the word Robin, showing him that she still remembered his speech, his want to be somebody else. "I'm doing okay, bills are tight and my job sucks, but I'm fine." _I'm anything but fine with you standing here, driving me insane....._

"Glad to hear it." _She's forcing herself to behave normally. She wants to go back and talk about what I did..... I can't let her know how much I miss her, though..... _"It's getting dark. Want to go get a coffee or something, and you can show me where you live? I really want to keep in touch with someone." The last sentence, though unintended, was true, and he felt his face arrange itself into a rather pleading mask.

"I guess so." The words tumbled out of her mouth, making her sound breathless, falling out in a rush. _I can't believe after all this time I'm still willing to follow him around.... Like some DOG or something.... _They walked quickly down the sidewalk, quiet considering that it was not even fully dark on a Saturday night yet. Robin watched her quietly, trying to guess what she was thinking about him.

_I still think she probably hates me..... _They entered the tiny corner coffee shop without a word. "Just tea," Raven said to the waitress, and Robin ordered himself a strong black coffee. _I could use it...... This is all making me so nervous....._

"So.........." Robin said, forcing cheer into his voice, trying to find words that didn't sound dull or uninteresting. _I don't want to force her to talk to me, I can't blame her for hating me.... I can't blame anyone for hating me....._

The waitress came back, tray in hand, and dumped the bill on the table. Two hands reached for it at once: Holding the bill from opposite ends, both felt their fingers brush the bill. "I've got it," Robin heard himself say, trying to draw his hand back, and Raven quietly let go.

She took a long sip of her tea, and suddenly she couldn't keep quiet anymore. "Don't you ever miss me.... I mean, the team?" A warm blush covered Raven's face: She couldn't believe she had let something slip out like that. _You idiot....._

Robin politely pretended not to notice, mainly because he was just as embarrassed as Raven was by his thoughts. _So she doesn't hate me.... But what should I tell her? _"Yes, actually." He heard himself say without thinking. _Now you've done it, Robin......_

_I never thought he'd admit it..... _"Why couldn't we reform? Or at least see more of each other, find the rest of the team, try to get back together?" Her breath came out in a rush, her voice quiet but strong in a way Robin had never heard before. "Unless things are going too well for you as Dick...."

"They aren't. I just wanted you to think I was happy, but..... All I can think about is the team, and the old days..... And our fight. I think about our fight a lot." The words fell over each other: Robin was not used to talking to anyone openly about anything and now, for the first time in a year, he had met up with someone from his old life, the one he cared about the most, and he couldn't even keep himself from babbling.

"I should have known to let you go..... I wasn't strong enough. I'm still not strong enough." _Why did I say THAT? _Raven questioned herself. _Now he's going to figure it out....._

"I think about you a lot." _What did I say that for? _Robin found his eyes locked on her violet ones. They were still piercing, as if they could see through him, and did not change at all as he made a confession of his feelings for her. She stood up, the bill now in her hand, and motioned for him to follow her.

Standing outside, Raven cast her eyes down the street and began walking toward her tiny apartment, Robin in stride next to her, saying nothing. "It's been nice seeing you again. I thought I wouldn't see you again, Rae.... And it worried me." The silence between them shattered, Robin's words hanging in the air, slowly taking shape inside of Raven's head and obtaining a meaning for her.

They climbed the steps in silence. _He actually couldn't stop thinking about me....... _"Do you maybe want to.... try to find the others, keep in contact?" Her eyes pierced his, only now he saw a change: He saw her anticipation, her hopefulness. It was enough to make him grin, and, judging by the long forgotten feeling tugging at his lips, he did so.

"I think we could." He felt himself draw forward, brush her lips in silence. She pulled away and looked at him: He looked back at her.

"You're missing something." She stepped through the doorway and to her dresser, moved the picture of the team, and retrieved a small black mask, tying it around his eyes with trembling fingers. "Or would you prefer to just go on living as Dick?"

"I'm Robin." He looked at his reflection, which was smiling, and at Raven's reflection, which was grinning and holding onto his reflection's arm. "I've been Robin all along. Dick is a broken identity now."

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Interesting way to kill some time. Not that great of an ending, though, I will admit. Whatever, I suppose. I hope you guys enjoyed it, despite the fact that it's a change from one of my really dark stories. _


	2. Walk Alone No More

_Raventhedarkgoddess: I've changed my mind about leaving this a one-shot... First chapter stands, but the rest I dedicate to my good friend Morph, for more things than I can openly type. Thanks, and enjoy. Oh, and this is sort of built in a song-fic format, but it still loops out to be a story._

**Chapter Two: Blvd. Of Broken Dreams**

_I walk a lonely road.  
The only one that I have ever known.  
Don't know where it goes,  
But it's only me and I walk alone. _

I walk this empty street.  
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.  
Where the city sleeps  
and I'm the only one and I walk alone.

Robin walked down the road: The same road he was always on, the same road he had walked every day since he had broken the team up, to work, to his house, for long, aimless hours without seeing anything. Even the air felt familer: Depressing and silent. He clutched the small index card in his hand, felt the mask against his face: Once again, he was Robin, and Dick Grayson was his shattered idenity on the floor of Raven's small apartment.

He could see police officers patroling the streets, keeping people safe as he had failed to do. He wondered if they would welcome the help after everything they had been through: That was, provided he and Raven could find the rest of the team. Provided he could wrap up the loose ends and figure out what being Robin really meant. Provided he could figure himself out. _Too much to think about, _he thought, swinging his legs more and more with each step he took.

He sighed. For someone who had just reunited with the love of his life, he couldn't have felt much worse. _She probably still thinks I'm a total idiot, and was just so happy to see me that she... _He rubbed his lip with one hand, thoughtlessly, feeling her kiss him again, so passionate and yet so fleeting. "Not going home yet," he muttered aloud, and kept walking, his feet moving fast, his eyes up toward the sky. It was a clear night, and the stars seemed to greet him. _'Stay and tell us our thoughts,' _they seemed to whisper, and Robin agreed.

He headed for the north side of the city: An old pair of railroad tracks ran down by the road. He jumped over the side of the railing to sit just above the tracks, watching the river go below him, waiting for another train to come, to jump it as he would have fantazied about and take him away from all the problems in his life, away from false love and everything that made false love real to him.

He felt his hair blow in the cool night wind and pulled the card from his pocket: There, in Raven's handwriting, smelling of the insence she had begun to burn as soon as they had reached her apartment, was her phone number. _Keep in touch, _she had written there. He clutched it, his only proof that the love, the hate, and the confusion he felt of the evening were real.

He looked back at the road: It was long and open, and he was still alone, even with a scrap of paper, because at any moment he could make another mistake and end up losing the only person he had come to know again. He stared at the sky and sighed: In leaving to find himself he had shattered dreams and broken lives and identies, and hurt himself more than he was willing to admit. "I never should have left, just to walk the same road day after day... I didn't find anything out about anyone but me, and that was that I'm a stubborn ass."

_My shadow's the only one who walks beside me.  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.  
'Till then I walk alone. _

I'm walking down the line  
That divides me somewhere in my mind.  
On the border line.  
Of the edge and where I walk alone.

Read between the lines  
What's fucked up and everything's alright.  
Check my vital signs  
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone.

He glanced out at the road: Would he continue to be all alone, regardless of life and of the time he could try to spend restoring the team? He knew he shouldn't care, considering he had abandoned them, but he couldn't help missing them, wanting the feeling of a team unity back. He looked at his own shadow: Even it seemed to turn it's own head when he gazed upon it, refusing to look at him.

"Why me?" _Why was I dumb enough to throw most of my life away for a time, come back and find everyone had left me, and now I can't help thinking it's my fault? _The stars still seemed to say, _Tell us your problems. _He drew his knees up to his chest, watching his shadow copy, but it still had no eyes to see him. _Just the way my soul had no eyes to see how much I hurt her._

He could almost feel his own heart pulsing: Down on the narrow cement ledge, he was the only one who could have seen or known his pulsing heart, and he knew at once that his shallow, self-centered, low-down heart was probably one of the only things beating in the entire area.

For some reason, he stood up: He felt the air move up to greet his face, and he looked down, wishing he could just jump. He could still feel the love for Raven pulsing in his chest, though, keeping him moblie and stable, keeping him sane and knowing exactly who he was. He stared at the water below him and, although he couldn't exactly see the inside of his own mind, figured this was what it must be like, teeteing above the waters of insanity, wanting to embrace it, but also wanted to atone for who he was and what he had done.

Suddenly, he heart a rumble: For no reason, his hand fell to his wrist, checking his own vital signs for no reason other than the fact that he was unsure of wether to call it a dream or not, the entire night, the unrealness of the way he felt. He watched it as it moved past him and grabbed inside of the coat he wore, watching things through the mask, through the eyes of a true Robin. Suddenly, he felt different, and he no longer wanted to grab ahold of one of the train cars and will it to take him away from the deserted street, away from the place where he had let everything he cared for down.

"It's not going to happen again," Robin said aloud, raising his hands with the card still in them. "Robin is back to try again." He looked at the sky. "And this time, I won't fail you, Raven."

_I walk alone  
I walk alone  
__I walk alone  
I walk a..._

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Til then I walk alone_

_I walk alone  
I walk a..._

_I walk this empty street  
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams  
Where the city sleeps  
And I'm the only one and I walk a..._

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Til then I walk alone..._

He climbed back up off the ledge and onto the road: His shadow seemed to be copying his movements, following his comands, recoginizing him as a leader. _But I'm just another stupid follower. _He looked up, no longer wanting to tell the stars anything about him, no longer wanting to talk to anyone about anything. He walked quickly, acting almost sure of himself.

The road was suddenly different, somehow. Less montonous, even though he was still completly alone, and he realized that all along, he'd been running, ignoring what he'd had all along, the ablity to not only love, but to fight back against the cold world he was landed in.

"I'm not alone." He didn't know where the statement came from, but he knew it was one worth making, one that was worth keeping close to his heart. "I'm going to get this team together and find out who I am."

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Not my best work, but passable, I hope you guys enjoyed it. I don't own TT or Blvd. of Broken Dreams, before I forget. R+R, please._


	3. Right Here By Me

_Raventhedarkgoddess: I don't have much to say except here's your update, people... School's been hectic, sorry about lack of updating..._

**Chapter Three: Here By Me**

_I hope you're doing fine out there without me  
'Cause I'm not doing so good without you  
__The things I thought you'd never know about me  
__Were the things I guess you always understood  
__So how could I have been so blind for all these years?  
__Guess I only see the truth through all this fear,  
__Of living without you…_

She walked slowly up toward the building, it's empty windows filing the glare back toward her face in the setting sun as she stared at the enormous T-shaped building, almost awestruck at the home she had not seen for a year. It's empty windows were shockingly large now, and the higher up on the hill she went from where she had landed on the water's edge, the more she came to enjoy the thought that somehow, someway, the Titans might all be able to live there together again in harmony. For some reason, as this thought filled her head, so did the thought of spending more time with Robin, being at his side when he finally remembered why he was not cut out to do anything but fight crime.

She blinked once, reminding herself that it didn't matter what Robin thought. _I'm only grateful to him for trying to bring us back together as a team, _she told herself. _Nothing else. _She decided that there was no point in questioning herself: It wasn't going to get her anywhere, after all. That was when she caught the others out of the corner of her eye and drew a sharp breath as she began to walk toward them, hesitation taking her mind. _This is stupid, _she told herself. _They're my friends._

_They **were **my friends, _she corrected herself in the back of her mind, watching them. They all seemed so tense that it hurt her to look, and so she moved slowly, looking only at the giant structure that they all stood in the shadow of, and sighed when she saw the blood-red look of the sun off the windows. And for a second there, she thought she saw a face in them. _Robin?_

She squinted her eyes and forced herself to look closer, but saw nothing: Whatever had been there, Robin, reflection, or otherwise, was gone. _See, nothing. Nothing except you and your adverse fear of absoultely nothing. _She took another step toward the group: Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to fear, and yet part of her couldn't stop trembling, couldn't stop being afraid inside.

Somehow, without shaking, without betraying herself of how afraid she really was of this meeting, of seeing them all, she made her way over to the group. "...Will even show up. I know how much she hated the idea of the break-up, of losing someone she cared about... We were like a family, and we lost that feeling because of Robin, so I can understand if she's turned against all of us..." The metal man suddenly felt something; Eyes, maybe? "Rae!"

"Hello Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire," she greeted them all quietly. She could feel them sizing her up, looking over the loose black skirt and the slightly tighter dark shirt she wore. She was sizing them up too in her mind, comparing them to the here and now images and the ones within her mind. "How have you been?"

Cyborg took it as a direct opportunity for him to talk and began to speak. "I got bounced around a lot, it took me four months to even find a job as a mechanic, and everyone I work with hates me... The world just doesn't seem to have a place for people who are trapped inside a hunk of metal." He looked down at his own hand with disgust and anger, rage in his face at both what he was and at a world that refused those who were different from themselves. "You?"

"My job doesn't pay very much and my apartment is too small for a person who never leaves their own safehold, but other than that the last year has been normal." What she didn't say, though, was about the long hours she spent typing thankless papers and the people that stared at her as they passed, about the people that wondered about the unfriendly girl with purple hair. _I just don't want him to know I'm as alone as he is._

"What about you?" She asked, eyeing Beast Boy, who seemed well-dressed, leather jacket gleaming in the fading light, denim jeans fitting his frame nicly, a Moped parked nearby that could only be for show. "You seem to be doing very well without the team."

"I just play comedy gigs. People there think I'm funny. But everyone thinks this green skin is just a part of my act. The truth is, I hate being like this, always joking and laughing and playing around. It's not like I want to act my whole life." This Beast Boy was so unlike the other one she had known: Bitter and serious, slightly worn-on by the way of the world.

Starfire only nodded. "I am fine." In her mismatched green sweater and blue sweatpants, she appered someone younger, but looked much, much older somehow, her emerald eyes not sparkling anymore, her hair falling straight down her back in a neat, almost orderly-looking way. Unwanted.

No one spoke: Raven instead looked at Cyborg, and Beast Boy at Starfire, and the four of them began to move: Left leg, then right leg, then left again, moving toward the door that they had left with their lives in peices and their hearts shattered in their chest.

_But can they ever be put back together?_

* * *

_And everything I had in this world  
And all that I'll ever be  
It could all fall down around me.  
Just as long as I have you,  
Right here by me._

_I didn't mean to scare her, _Robin said to himself as he looked out the large bay window, pulling away from him before he could really get a good look at the faces of his friends, at the face of the girl that was haunting him from the kiss they had shared.

He had wanted to see her again, and part of him was having a hard time accepting it. _If anything, Starfire and I are going to hook back up. That's it. That's all I want. I don't care about Raven, I don't care about how lonely or how upset she's been, I didn't mean to kiss her and give her the wrong idea, that's not how I am..._

_Or did I? _He shook his head and looked over at his shadow, which seemed to have been keeping him company just by being there, assuring him that rejection from them wouldn't be the end of his world. 'After all,' it seemed to say, 'you rejected them once too.'

He could hear them coming closer and closer, approching the door, knew they would be here any minute, and so he tried to make himself stand tall and strong, tried to fortify his mind against what they might say, but something inside of him couldn't quite make the cut, and he felt the doubts rushing back to meet him.

But then, for no reason, a thought of Raven, of standing beside her, rushed through his mind, and he knew he had to at least try. If nothing else, even if this all fell down behind him, at least he would get to see her.

_Not that I care, _he added to himself.

'I'm sure you don't,' his shadow seemed to say. 'I'm sure you don't.'

* * *

_I can't take another day without you  
__'Cause baby, I could never make it on my own  
__I've been waiting so long just to hold you  
__And be back in your arms where I belong  
__Sorry I can't always find the words to say  
__But everything I've ever know gets swept away  
__Inside of your love…_

The door opened slowly and with a loud creak that sent a slight chill through the four group memebers that stood there, looking into the long-forgotten main room of what had once been their home. Cyborg sharply drew breath in spite of himself: Being back here opened all of the memories, the memories of Raven and Robin fighting, the memories of goodbyes both painful and uneeded.

Part of him wanted to tell Robin no, wanted to see him suffer as Cyborg, the unwanted man of half metal, had suffered for the past year, but the other part of him was just alone and afraid and wanted to be back in the home where he belonged. That was when he realized that the person standing there in the middle of the room was Robin.

"You all came?" He sounded slightly increndous, as if he couldn't believe that they would come after his cruelty, as if he knew that what he had done was wrong. "You guys would really give reforming the team another chance?"

"Robin, the team is a family. Are families supposed to abandon one another? Are we just supposed to abandon people who are actually willing to accept us?" Beast Boy asked, saying one of the only serious things he would ever say in his life. "I'm not like you.I don't just turn my back on the people I care about!"

Robin sighed: Beast Boy was making this much, much harder than it had to be, but somehow he knew he deserved it. "You're right. I was stupid. Everything I did was stupid. It doesn't make you happy to live out there in a world where no one trusts everyone and everybody needs a hero. I'm sorry I even tried to make a new idenity for myself. I hurt you guys. I didn't mean to do that."

"Friend Robin, it is alright." Although her voice was very thin and weak, as if she rarely talked for fear that the words would come out of her mouth wrong, Starfire spoke with enough volume to instill confidence in him. She moved slowly to his side. "I will join you, if no one else will."

While this might have made him comfortable before, his eyes were on Raven and only on Raven, on the person he tried to deny he was doing this for. "Thanks, Star."

Cyborg and Beast Boy stepped forward together, slowly. "We can always back out if this doesn't work, right?" Beast Boy whispered nervously to Cyborg, who only shrugged. Raven came to join them, her eyes locked on Robin's face, studying it for several seconds. He tried not to stare back, tried not to apper happy that she would pay him a second glance like that.

"Robin, can I talk to you outside?" Part of her, the part of her that was afraid of the answer, tried to jumble the words, tried to make her tounge-tied, but there was no denying it: She had to know wether or not he really loved her or if he had just been playing games that night they had met back up on that cold, lonely street corner.

"Sure."

* * *

_And everything I had in this world  
__And all that I'll ever be  
__It could all fall down around me.  
__Just as long as I have you,  
__Right here by me._

_As the days grow long I see  
__That time is standing still for me  
__When you're not here  
__Sorry I can't always find the words to say  
__Everything I've ever known gets swept away  
__Inside of your love_

"What'd you want, Raven?" They stood along the shore, the place he had proposed they go: He loved the calming noise of the rocks and the water, slapping together and spalshing around their ankles where they stood. He tried to see past her calm violet eyes, but they held no prose in the very last of the dying sunlight. "We should really get back inside soon," he added in an edgy voice.

"Do you think you and I could ever be together? Or have you reconnected with Starfire now that you've seen her?" She hadn't meant to sound so straight-forward, so cold, but that was what ended up happening: Her voice came out dark and hard, straight to the point. Exactly as she hadn't wanted it to. "You two always were close, after all."

"Rae... The truth is, I don't know. Every time I see you, I tell myself I don't like you, and then I end up liking you even more for some stupid thing I say that you overlook or something you do. I was just so afraid back there that you'd reject me and you'd leave the team, and I'd be all alone... Not alone, but without you the team would have just felt so empty..." Robin stopped his empty babbling; He had no idea what he was trying to tell her anymore. Somehow, though, one of his arms snaked around her waist and she let him stand there next to him.

"It's not safe for me to return that kind of affection outwardly, you know. Do you want to be with someone who hides from you all the time, who can't even show the slightest bit of affection? I know I'm not the easiest to get along with to begin with... Will you be like everyone else and push me away again?" Her skirt beat heavily in an unseen wind and she groaned inwardly, knowing that she had ended up causing that wind with the unease in her head, the unease at using her heart again.

"It doesn't matter to me. What is important is that you feel it and that you're not like everyone else, who just likes me because... Well, because I have the namesake of Robin. You're not like that, are you?"

"Do I look that shallow?" He knew at once he must have offended her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, it's just... I've been alone for so long, and..."

"We've all been alone too long." She leaned against him. "We don't know what to say or do around each other anymore. The team will be destroyed if everyone doesn't learn to trust each other again."

Robin smiled, feeling his own face flush. "Can that be our next task, then?"

"We'll worry about that when the time comes." And after that, she could say no more, because his lips came to hers and, hearing the rocks around her crumble from the pain of containing everything, she kissed him back, doing her best to enjoy the moment.

* * *

_And everything I had in this world  
__And all that I'll ever be  
__It could all fall down around me.  
__Just as long as I have you,  
Right here by me. _

Starfire glared out the window into the darkness: Raven and Robin, Raven and Robin was all she could think. She watched the two boys playing video games, but it no longer mattered to her. What mattered was that they were outside, growing closer, and she had no one friend or boyfriend to comfort her, to let her know she meant something.

All alone again. She could see them coming closer now.

Hands linked. Hands linked as if they would never let go, as if it were just Raven and Robin against the world. She had been there first, hadn't she? Hadn't she always been there for him?

Fury welled up inside her, but she let it die away as they came in. "Did you have a nice walk, friends?"

Both smiled and said that they had. All she could do was sigh: How could she stay where she was no longer wanted?


	4. Learn To Fly

_Raventhedarkgoddess: I don't really have much to say... Enjoy._

**Chapter Four: Learn to Fly**

_Run and tell the angels  
This could take all night.  
Think I need a devil to help me get things right.  
Hook me up a new revolution,  
'Cause this one is a lie.  
We sat around laughing.  
And watched the last one die._

"No! No, no and no," Robin snapped loudly. The late-night skywas filled with a tint of bright stars, but he ignored them: He cared only about the training course and how the members of his soon-to-be reformed team were dealing with the intenseness of their late-night training. The person currently up was Raven, and any affection for him was swallowed by his fury and the rush of adrienile. "You have to look out!"

Raven preformed a graceful twirl in mid-air, although it looked far from graceful. The blue cloak swished around her, something she was not used to wearing after all this time. The projectiles from the training guns on both sides came fast and hard, and she used what she remembered to avoid them, moving left, then right, realizing just how hard it was to fly after all the time she had spend away. Suddenly, a tenth projectile, for she had managed to avoid nine, came out of nowhere and smacked a small vein on her left leg. It may not have been that big of a deal to most, but seeing the blood that ran down her left side from the small cut on her leg was enough to drive Robin insane.

Both of her feet touched down on the muddy ground. "Booya, new course record!" Cyborg yelled. "Nice job, Raven." For some reason, he felt more at home here than he ever had, working the machines and standing between people who weren't afraid of him, who wouldn't reject him no matter how stupid he acted, who ignored the fact that he was half machine and liked him just the same.

"No, not a nice job. What were you thinking up there? If that was a real enemy missle, you would have been hurt or killed!" Robin waved his arms wildly as he gestured to the long stream of crimsion blood running down her pale leg. "I want you to be more careful in our next training session!" His spikey black hair blew in an unseen breeze that took both his hair and her cloak, the material smacking against both their legs.

"So flying is just supposed to be something I remember how to do after all this time," she whispered quietly, and turned away from him in an easy form of emotion that was not at all hard to read as most things about her were: Disgust clouded her face.

"Flying is something one must remember how to do, though, if we are to be a team!" Starfire bubbled. Most of her perkiness had all but returned to her, and for some reason the insane jealousy was gone as well: If they wanted to be together, that was fine by her. At least she was not completely alone, the one thing she feared, the thing that had scarred both her life and her dreams since they had been apart.

Raven's feet sloshed through the mud and she did not look back: They could never understand. The door to the Tower clanked open, then shut so that everyone could hear them, although that was most likely not Raven's intentions, considering how much she hated to cause a scene. "Dude, she seems pretty upset over something," Beast Boy commented.

All anyone could do was nod and head toward the house. Robin sighed: He truly didn't want this to be all up to him to make Raven feel better. Something within him wouldn't stay away from her, though. He moved toward the Tower with resolve written on his thin face. He had to make her understand.

_Maybe I'm the one with some understanding to do, _the leader thought to himself as the doors shut behind himself and the team. He looked up at the silver moon, wondering how to talk to Raven, to a girl who was a blessing, an angel with a devil for a father and yet so withdrawn, so quiet.

_This could take all night._

_I'm looking to the sky to save me.  
__Looking for a sign of life.  
__Looking for something help me burn out bright.  
__I'm looking for a complication.  
__Looking cause I'm tired of lying  
__Make my way back home when I learn to fly. (high)_

Her hands were under her head as she sat gazing at the round, pale moon. It was mysterious, so far away from her, and she wondered if somehow she couldn't make her way to the moon, so far away and peaceful in a way Earth could never be. Her heart was racing quietly in her chest, wondering if she had somehow made a mistake, coming back here instead of ignoring her affection and continuing to lead a normal, quiet life.

_As if anything was ever normal in my life to begin with, _she thought to herself. She shifted, tucking her still-bloody leg under herself as she sat up, continuing to look over everything she had so long ago said she would protect, the whole city included. "Maybe Robin's right," she whispered to herself. "I didn't do anything right back there and I'm not fit to protect anyone else."

Once again, she cast her eyes back upward, back to the midnight sky. For some reason, her lips formed involintary words, words without a voice. _Save me, _she mouthed to the stars and the moon above her. _Save me from myself._

The entire world seemed desolent, bleak, as if she were all alone on a lifeless planet with no real love or feeling to the air. For some reason, this didn't bother her. What bothered her more were her own emotions, her feelings of attachment and love for the people she had once again joined as a team, had become a unity with once more and taken back many of the bonds she had tried to cut herself from to save herself the heartache.

_Too bad I could never make it on my own._

For almost no reason, everything felt like an empty, hollow lie, including what she was repeating to herself over and over in her mind. _I don't need Robin, I don't need this team, I just need to be a free and happy person... I just want to be free from all this pain I'm in... I just want to be alone..._

_I just want to be free of this lie. _The moonlight reflected on her face, loose and forgotten, so much like herself that it almost hurt her to even think the words. _I'm living a long, drawn-out, complicated lie, _they came again, and she shifted again, uncomfortable within the confinments of her own body, so that she had her arms wrapped around her knees as if she might never let go, as if it would be easier to sit there forever with her violet eyes full of pain and her purple hair blowing in the wind, blue cloak around her as if it would protect her from everyone and everything around her if it had that kind of power.

"Raven, are you up here?" Asked a soft voice, and, even before she turned around, even as she felt the gooseflesh rising, she had to struggle to remain calm, for she knew who the soft voice belonged to. "Listen, I'm sorry about before..."

_Think I'm done nursing the patience.  
__I cant wait one night.  
__I'd give it all away if you'd give me one last try.  
__We live happily ever trapped. if you'd just save my life.  
__Run and tell the angels.  
__That everything is alright._

_I'm looking to the sky to save me.  
__Looking for a sign of life.  
__Looking for something to help me burn out bright.  
__I'm looking for complications.  
__Looking cause I'm tired of trying.  
__Make my way back home when I learn to fly._

Raven moved over and made a gesture with her pale, empty hand and Robin came over to her, back in hero's garb, looking more and more like the boy she remembered, the boy she had fallen madly in love with all that time ago and then hated herself for it. He really did look sorry: Sorry and alone as he took his seat next to her. The pale moon seemed to bother him, stretching out over his face and making him appear worn and tired.

"I just lost it out there earlier." The words were quiet and regreatful. "I don't even know what's wrong with me." He sighed for a second, sighing quietly as if he had never sighed before, for this one bore deeper regreat than usual at hurting her. "I don't even know what it was all about, I was just upset and it all blew up in my face..."

Raven sighed. She wished there was an honest way to respond to that, or at least a way to force out the words 'It's okay', but nothing came from her except that sigh, which clearly was misinturprited on Robin. "I'm sorry, I'll leave you alone..."

She caught his hand in her own and he was forced to look at her, although he wasn't sure if he dared to or not. Her eyes were not angry, only lonely, scared, and upset. "Robin, sit back down." Her voice held an edge, but not an angry edge, more of a gentle one, and he did give in and sit quietly back down. "You're just stressed out. You want us all to come back together. While it's true that you upset me, it's not really your fault." She paused and looked back up at the sky, his hand still clasp in hers. "You have every right to be angry that I can't even remember how to fly correctly."

"It's not your fault." The words stuck a bit in the back of his throat, though, and Raven could almost hear the hollowness in them. "If we had never broken up in the first place, we wouldn't have to go through all this." He stopped talking suddenly, feeling more alone and guilty than ever before. "It's my fault. I just wasn't patient enough to realize that everything I needed was already here. I just thought that elsewhere would be best... For all of us."

Raven didn't respond for a second, her eyes cast back to the moon. Suddenly, she hooked both arms under Robin's, holding him against herself tightly in her arms.

"I need some help to learn to fly again," she said in an almost emotionless voice. All the emotions ran tightly under the surface, though, as she held him there. "You're my leader, so you need to be able to help me." Both legs beat against the side of the building and, without warning, he was suspended below her in her arms.

_Fly along with me.  
__I cant' quite make it on my own.  
__Try to make this life my own.  
__Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone.  
__Try to make this life my own. _

_Looking to the sky to save me.  
Looking for a sign of life.  
__Looking for something help me burn out bright.  
__I'm looking fora complcation.  
__Looking cause I'm tried of trying.  
__Make my way back home  
__When I learn to fly. (high)_

The whole city appered small and lost below them. Her motions were unsteady, but Robin kept one hand on hers, reassuring her that she was fine in a strangled voice, in slight shock. Never before had he imagined how the world would look from the sky. The moon above them was cold and the whole world desolent, but for some reason this didn't bother him at all.

"Are you okay?" She asked him, her motions becoming slightly less clumsy with every second they shared, trying to keep her emotions in check. Without really waiting for an answer, she brought herself closer to the ground to land, far away from the lights, the noise, and the people. Silence fell around them. Robin touched his windblown face in uncertainty, not sure what he should say or do.

He didn't have to wait long, though. Raven was the first to begin talking. "Are you sure you really want to bring the team back together?" The question, one he had asked himself over and over again, shattered the mystical mood and left him feeling rather miserable within a few split seconds. "I mean, if you're really that uncomfortable around us and don't want to see me or talk to me again after how messed up I am, I can understand that much."

"No, Raven, this has nothing to do with you... I tried to bring us back together because of you... Don't think this is your fault, okay?" Robin found that the words just tumbled over one another in a breathless rush, the way he had sometimes had when he talked to Starfire before. "It's not. I'd rather try to fix this after I messed it up..." He stopped for a second and looked over at Raven. "I'm so sick of messing up just because I wanted to lie to myself and tell myself I didn't need anyone."

"This is a complicated situation. While it may have all been a lie, I don't want you to feel that you've made anything worse. We'll make this work out somehow." She stopped and gave him a smile. "We'll make it work together."

"Should we go..." He paused, faltured, wondering if they were the right words to say or if it was another mess-up, another stupid mistake on his part. He still couldn't help feeling as if something would fall out of place and he would really be alone again, but... "Let's go home."

Raven smiled at him, a smile that actually reached her cold eyes, and she held her arms out to him. "Yes," she said quietly, "Let's go home."

And that was when the communcator at her belt went off. "Yo, Robin, Rae, I don't know where you two are, but we need you here right now. The tower's under assult!" Cyborg was obviously frantic.

"Just hold out for a few minutes!" Robin snapped the communicator shut: Evil had a way of interupting all of the good parts of his life. "How fast do you think you can get us there?"

Instead of an answer, Raven moved her arms away from his shoulders and became a giant black bird. As he felt them vanishing, flying through the air and streaking for home, he knew somehow that, even in the worst situations, maybe things would get better for them.

_Make my way back home and learn to fly._


	5. Hero

**Chapter Five: Hero**

_**I am so high,  
I can hear heaven.  
I am so high,  
I can hear heaven.  
Oh but heaven, no heaven don't hear me.**_

* * *

Raven landed hard, both feet driving neatly into the ground as she came to a halt from flying just before the Tower, face flushed slightly, breathing rate up a bit from her normal rate. The front doors were gone- presumably torn away by whatever strange force had become irritated with Cyborg's security system- and the sounds of the battle came from within. Raven looked to Robin, who nodded, and both rushed into the Tower, Robin with his bow-staff out, Raven with her hood up, hands out. 

Ready for a fight.

"Raven! Robin!" Starfire threw off what appeared to be something any one of the Titans would have recoginized even if it had been years and years since they had last seen one: A Slade-bot. "Friends, the battle has moved to the roof! Beast Boy and Cyborg have requested that we join them upon your arrival!"

"Slade..." Robin muttered, his voice low, his hands balling into fists at his side in spite of himself. "I don't know how he found out we regrouped, or what he means... But we have to stop him right now!" His face whiter than usual, he moved toward the elevator, leaving the other two to run toward the closing door toward the rooftop.

* * *

Raven looked around: Had she and Robin really left from this rooftop a little less than an hour ago? The moon still hung in the sky, and the world around them was still beautiful, but now it seemed tainted: Robots were falling down the sides of the building, revealing to Raven, who had never been afraid before, just how high up they were from the ocean. 

Clouds sparkled around them, the light seeming beautiful and yet somehow deadly. She drew back: Anything within that wide sky wouldn't be able to hear a word she said, not now or ever, and she was alone in this battle. Alone in the air, in the world around her.

She looked over at Robin, his face clamped tightly, his jaw more pronounced than ever. Raven looked at the army and remembered their first battles together, almost feeling as if she was warped back to that time two years back, when they had been a young team struggling to believe in everything, including in one another.

"Rae, now!" Cyborg screamed. The fondness of the nickname "Rae" moved her to action, moving in on the enemies, looking for the real master, the man known as Slade. Taking several of them and throwing them over the edge, she moved closer to the center, floating a few inches above the ground.

_**And they say that a hero can save us.  
Im not gonna stand here and wait.  
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.  
Watch as we all fly away.**_

Beast Boy was engaded furiously in attempting to drive the robots away from Starfire, who had fallen and was clinging to the side almost as if she were not happy enough to tap into the joys of flying. "Get back!" He was holloring, and Raven could only sigh: What wouldn't she have given to hear some corny joke and not the protective seriousness that reminded her that they were all different people now.

People who could no longer use the word 'hero' to describe themselves, having abandoned an entire city at the loss of their leader, having abandoned their work as a silly, childish dream.

_We just wanted to save people, _she reminded herself softly. _We just didn't want to wait for the heros that we didn't think existed in the world to come and save us. It wasn't a crime... It was just innocence, stupidity. _She kicked the nearest robot in her anger and moved toward Starfire, catching her around the waist and pulling her up onto the building next to her.

"Are you alright?" The other girl only nodded, and Raven sighed: She had been wrong to compare the way things were now to the way they had been. She moved forward to join the battle again: Regreats were never expressed on a battlefield in the first place, not now.

"There's too many of 'em!" Cyborg was heard yelling, and Raven could see that Robin became even more tense at this statement. Raven could tell by the frensy of his movement that he knew as well as everyone else that the team could not hold out under pressure forever.

"Fight anyway!"

The battle became increasingly violent, and soon not only Starfire but also Beast Boy were unable to fight. "I cannot believe we will win..."

Beast Boy sighed, still trying to get to his feet in vain. He could no longer help fight off the swarm, and he was begining to feel increasingly helpless. "We'll make it, Star. We were heros once and we can be heros again."

**_Someone told me love will all save us.  
But how can that be, look what love gave us.  
A world full of killing, and blood-spilling  
That world never came._**

_**And they say that a hero can save us.  
Im not gonna stand here and wait.  
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.  
Watch as we all fly away.**_

Raven sighed as the battle thined, worn and tired. The other two members of the team looked just as tired. And that was when they saw him, almost completely unguarded, mask gleaming in the light. "Slade!"

At the sound of his name, Slade looked up, eyes hard behind his mask, a smirk coming to his face as he realized it was the voice he had not heard in over a year: The voice of the boy who thought he could be a leader and failed, had failed at life even after his team was gone, who had tried to rid himself of his team to free himself. "Hello, Robin. I see your... friends are back."

"Don't mock me," Robin spat. "How did you know we were here!" He glared at Slade, at the debries of Slade-bots around his feet. "Why do you have such an interest after a whole year?"

"Do you really think my eyes ever left you, Robin?" He mocked, his voice even more mocking now than ever. "You're a hero, after all. A hero that couldn't save his own friends, but a hero none the less. Personally, I think it'll make for a better villan anyway." He smirked. "You always were a villan at heart, willing to spill blood and kill to protect people, or so you told yourself to cover for your actions..."

"Shut up!" He practically found himself screaming at Slade, feeling Raven's eyes on him in partual fear, partual affection, as if pleading with him not to make himself insane. "Just shut up! You know nothing of me and you never will!"

"I know that you call yourself a hero," he said with a smirk. "You're not a hero, though, are you? You're nothing but a coward who ran from his friends." He side-stepped a low blow from Robin's bow staff and continued to talk. "You're a hero, all right- A hero to people like me, who know you don't belong anywhere."

Now it was Raven's turn to hit something: And so she hit Slade, hard and directly in the middle of the forehead of his mask. "Don't ever talk that way again to anyone, least of all one of my teammates."

"Love can't save you, defensive little bird. Love saves nothing. In fact,nothing can save you." He moved forward, smirking. "You'll all just keep spilling blood and hating, until everything you hate is forever a part of you." He raised his bow staff. "You can run, but you can't hide forever, Raven. Not from who you are, or what you are, or how you feel."

A blast from Cyborg's cannon hit him, and Slade turned to flee. "Mark my words, Titans, we'll meet again." And in a single leap, he was gone from the roof, gone from the area.

The after-effects of his battle still hung from the air, the entire area reminding them of the painful words that had just been spoken.

"Love is a lie?" Raven asked softly, but no one turned to look at her as she turned to help Starfire and Beast Boy, both of whom were staring at where Slade had jumped from as if he were inhuman, as if the entire act bewildered them.

Robin kicked out, his boot striking something nearby and making a loud metalic clunk. "I'm not a hero... There is no hero here."

* * *

_**And they say that a hero can save us.  
Im not gonna stand here and wait.  
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.  
Watch as we all fly away.**_

_**Now that the world isnt ending,  
its love that Im sending to you.  
It isnt the love of a hero,  
and thats why I fear it wont do.**_

Raven looked over the wounds on Starfire's left arm one more time: Invisible, as if they had never existed at all. "Thank you, friend Raven," the alien girl said gratefully, despite the hard look on Raven's face as she sank down on the worn, forlorn couch between Robin and Cyborg, looking lifeless.

"Raven?" Robin said quietly. "Can I talk to you... Alone?" He added, catching Starfire's look of hope at the prospect of finding something out about them. He watched as Raven got gracelessly to her feet and followed him out of the living room.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, standing in the long hallway with the door shut so as to avoid being overheard. "You seem... Down on yourself."

"I was once told love was the answer," she muttered vaugly. "But they were wrong. Love only leads to more killing and spilling blood..." She sighed. "It's pointless of me to think someone like you, a hero, could ever stay with a scared little girl like me..."

"Raven, I'm the one who's not a hero. You heard Slade... He's right. I'm not a hero... I just chose to run, to fly away instead of staying to stand up for what any true hero is willing to believe in." He sighed. "We're defeated here and now, and we didn't even get anywhere..." He paused. "Raven, do you see me as a hero?"

"Yes." She paused, unable to explain her feelings for a moment. "Robin, you are a hero... You tried everything, you wanted to protect us... You just didn't know how. You're a good guy... Are you going to listen to him, of all people? You're nothing like him and never will be." She stopped to let that sink in and took his hand. "You're not a villan. You're one of the few heros who still knows what it's like."

He hugged her gently, almost afraid, as if she might draw away from him at any second. She smiled and leaned her body against his slightly, and they rested like that. "We'll find a way to be ready for whatever comes, okay?"

"We can't stand here and wait, after all..." He whispered. "We've got to find Slade and protect the people of this city again."

_For you and for me._

_**And they say that a hero can save us.  
Im not gonna stand here and wait.  
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles.  
Watch as we all fly away.**_

_**And they're watching us  
(Watching Us)  
And they're watching us  
(Watching Us)  
As we all fly away.**_

No one said a word as the two entered the room. No one truly needed to: The content expressions on the faces of their friends told them that somehow, some way, everything would be alright. "We've got to get to work on finding Slade. Cyborg, you can search the computers! Starfire..."

Everything was back to normal.

Or as normal as you can get for a team of heros.

_Because heros are what we are._

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: I don't own the song Hero by Nickelback. R+R, please._**


	6. And the Hero Will Drown

**_A/N: Sorry about the lack of updates, guys! I've been insanely busy without and trying to update has been my personal nightmare. Hopefully I can get back on track- Here's chapter six!_**

**Chapter Six: And The Hero Will Drown**

_**Guess it's too bad  
That everything we had  
is taken away.**__

* * *

_

The next few weeks passed without much event. Minor villan after minor villan fell at the hands of the Titans, but Robin was still not satisfied. _How long will it take? _He would ask himself at night. _How much longer until I can make Slade take back what he said? How long until I show that I am a true hero and that I'm stronger with her love than without it?_

He had found his affection for Raven growing daily. Even if she couldn't phycially show her affection very often for fear of emotional interference, everything she did seemed to endear her to him, from the occassional laugh that would slip from her lips which they were researching together at night to her small, imperfect motions on the training field where she would slip or somehow miss the target and hit something else. However, he could always feel a set of eyes watching them.

Starfire was almost always there, watching them with some envy in her deep green eyes every time she was in the same room as them. Raven always seemed rather flustered and quieter than when they were alone, although her friendship with Starfire didn't appear to be damanged at all by her relationship with Robin.

_"Why aren't you two still together? It's kind of obvious she still loves you," Raven had said one night. Robin couldn't even remember what he had said, but for some reason the idea of being with Starfire was no longer an important one to him._

Starfire sat on the couch, staring out the window across the lake in the general direction of the city. Suddenly, the significance of the date she had been searching for all along hit her- She realized that today she and Robin would have been together a number of years, four or five. Blinking so as to avoid crying, she stared out the window at a tree near the tower, trying to make sure no one else could see the tears threatening to spill.

Sadly, the tree was not interesting or capitvating enough to keep her from seeing Robin and Raven, both covered in the mud that had been caused by the earlier rainstorm of the morning. "...Great! I didn't expect you to end up throwing me back into the mud, though."

Raven tried to sustain her emotion and avoid blushing. "I'm sorry about that. I just got so caught up in the moment... And I didn't think I was strong enough to throw you."

They both laughed and Robin gently wiped some of the mud into Raven's hair, who responded by flinging a bit of mud past him and hitting the wall. Starfire tried to remind herself that tree bark made pretty patterns, searching desperatly for something else to stare at, but it was too late, and the tears quietly slid down her face and landed on the top of her shirt, hitting her shoulders and sliding down toward the floor.

"Starfire, I didn't..." Raven's voice came out in a slightly broken tone as she straightened up and stared after the other girl, who was quickly fleeing the room past the two mud-covered teens, loud sobs easily heard retreating down the long hallway. She sighed, and Robin put a hand around her shoulder, which she quickly shoved off and turned to move after her. "Wait!"

"Tough luck, man," Cyborg said, clapping Robin on the back. "I'm sure Rae can sort it out, though."

"Yeah," Beast Boy added, "But I wouldn't recommend acting all lovey-dovey around Starfire again."

"Shut it." With that, the team leader made his way out of the room, mud sliding from his hair. For some reason, though, it was not nearly as inviting as before, and he did his best to shove it away from the eyeholes of his mask as he left, the smile gone from his face as his thoughts came back to him.

* * *

**_The night will come  
and rip away,  
her wings of innocence through every word we say  
maybe it's time,  
to spit out the core of our rotting union  
hopefully before it chokes  
us to our senses._**

_**Guess it's too bad,  
that everything we have  
is taken away.**_

_**

* * *

**_The next few days passed quietly. Robin never saw Raven, and, from what he could tell, Starfire was also avoiding him. One night after training, he decided to confront the silent girl, who was standing behind the controls, intently watching Cyborg run a round as if there was nothing wrong with her at all. 

"You're avoiding me, aren't you?" Robin asked her quietly. "Did Starfire say something? Because you dont' have to worry about it offending me, I just want to know..."

He recived no response as Raven slammed her fingers into a few more buttons. "I told her that if it would make her feel better, I wouldn't get anymore involved with you. Get back together with her, at least for a while. You and I... Weren't meant to be anyway. Slade was right... Love will never conquer all."

"Raven, how can you be saying that!" He slammed his own hand against the panel, which brought a very abrupt end to Cyborg's training as the small robots knocked him to the ground with a power that was only there for operation abortion training. "You'd really give up all we have for... for nothing?"

"Robin... Starfire is young and innocent. Don't break her by abandoning her. I've fought beside you long enough. You know how muchI wish we could make this work, but after all this time... Her love is strong, and when faced with someone like that, you could never stay with me." The whole time she spoke, she was fiddling with the machine, trying to save Cyborg from his own training droids.

"Raven, why would you think...?"

"HELP! I COULD USE SOME HELP HERE!" Cyborg was lying on his back, and his face was turned upright, toward the sky, which was clearly becoming the night around them. Beast Boy was beside him, trying to aid him in his struggle back to his feet, but he too had fallen. Starfire was blasting valueable equitment, and Raven sighed. _I don't want to say goodbye to him..._

That was when the alarm went off.

"Slade..." Robin muttered, clentching his left hand into a fist. "We have to stop Slade!" He looked over at his team- Raven had just managed to stop the robots from killing the other three members. "We'll never beat him like this," he whispered to himself. "TITANS, GO!"

* * *

"What do you want and why are you doing this!" Robin hollored as they reached the location of the distress cry- A local cafe, the very one where he had taken Raven for their first meeting that year. His mind imidatly began to reel with questions, but for some reason they all began with the word 'Why?" 

_Why would she abandon me? Why doesn't she seem to care anymore? Why does she act so cold to me? Why would she say that love is forever and then abandon her love? Is there something I don't know yet? _He looked over at her, but, hood up, face covered, she looked as inpenitrable as she had seemed earlier. _Why won't she answer me? She can't just give up on us yet... The team... I put the pieces back together for her, and yet..._

"Why?" Slade asked mockingly. "Dear Robin, you make me laugh to ask me why. Do I need a reason to be evil, any more of a reason than you need to continue to pretend to be a hero?"

"Shut up! Take back everything you said to us!"

"The core of your union is slowly falling to pieces, Robin. You're trying to put back together what you shattered, and failing. If you refuse to give up now, that refusal may hurt the people you're trying your hardest to care about. Is that what you want, Robin? To hurt the people you love?" Slade paced back and forth atop the counter, mocking with every word he said as he smirked at Robin.

Starfire hit him in the chest with a single starbolt. "You will not talk to Robin that way, ever!"

"For someone who has problems with her dear Robin and their relationship falling apart, you certainly are defensive, little Starfire." Slade pulled his bo-staff from his back and leaned against it, surveying the Titans. "You're all far worse for wear than I expected... Too easy to destroy, almost. But, seeing as you're the only heros left to protect Jump City from me, I'm going to have to eliminate your stubborness."

Starfire pulled back with pain written on her face and Raven cast her a sympathtic look from under her hood, moving toward Slade with her usual grace. "You're taunting won't work, Slade. Everything you say are lies."

"We'll see about that, Raven." And with that, he launched forward. Cyborg made a point to aim for his chest as he lept toward Raven, but missed and instead struck the building, the walls on the sides luminated with the blue glow.

That was when Slade's face lit up with an idea. He could feel the match book in his back pocket, and the idea was forming in his head. "Excellent," he whispered, raising his bo-staff to ward off Beast Boy as the rhino came charging toward him in an attempt to knock him backward.

He reached one hand back to pull the matches out. "A glorious blaze is how all heros go out, Robin. You're not a hero, but your friends are... It's almost a shame to end our game so soon." With that, the match fell toward the ground, all eyes upon it. Starfire, eyes wet with tears, looked up in time to see an orange and yellow glow falling, falling toward the ground...

And that was when the rotting wood floor caught fire as Slade sprung off. In three quick, agile movements, he made his way out of the window, leaving the room in a blaze.

"It's not going to end like this! Titans, move for the exits!" Robin hollored as the thick black smoke filled the room, blinding him and causing him to drop to his knees on the ground. _How did everything get taken away so quickly...? What... _He forced the thoughts to break off, however, and crawled forward on his knees.

* * *

_**Swim in the smoke  
The hero will drown  
Intoxicating beauty tears everything down  
But still our hands are  
Bound at the wrist  
This romantic tragedy is suffocating from your fist,  
In a sea of fire.**_

**_Guess it's too bad,  
that everything we have  
is taken away.

* * *

_**

Raven found that she couldn't rise above the smoke in the narrow area between the crates she'd been using as a barrier between herself and Slade and the wall. Somehow, some way, the smoke had managed to trap her, and she found that she felt weak and helpless. The smoke was thick, black, dancing around before her eyes, and there was no way to avoid it- She truly was trapped. 

_Robin... I have to get out. He... He has a right to know what happened between me and Starfire... He deserves to know the truth... I love him... _The emotion itself was almost too strong to control, and she fell off of her knees to the floor as she tried to move again, trying to pull herself out from behind the crate.

Beast Boy could hear scratching from behind a nearby crate, but couldn't be sure if it was indeed a teammate- And he was losing air quickly. Turning around, he tried desperatly to find a crack in the wall where he could escape.

That was when the hole in the wall came to his attention. Quickly becoming a small mouse, he slipped through the crack in the wall to prepare to disappear. Again he heard the scratching and wondered if he should abandon her. However, unable to breath, he decided not to stay.

And slipped away from the spot where Raven was stuck.

Cyborg had already made his way out of the small building and was standing next to Starfire, watching the building burn. "Raven and Robin... BB, did you see either of them?"

They watched the entrance, the doorway, collapse before he answered. "No... I didn't even hear anything."

"Then we must go back for our friends!" Starfire insisited, stomping one foot in the fashion of a spoiled child. "We cannot leave them to die! Friend Robin..."

Cyborg looked at her with a sad eye, the robotic one reflecting the damage in a deep red color. "Robin and Raven probably won't have made it out. They've both inhaled too much smoke from the fire..."

"You cannot say that!" With those yelled words, she flung herself against Beast Boy, the person standing closest to her, and began to cry. He sighed and looked down at her.

"Guess it's too bad everything gets taken away from us in the end, huh?" Cyborg said.

No one answered, but the silence was all the answers he needed, and so Cyborg looked up into the dark sky that had robbed him of so much he cared about, and cursed it silently. Nearby, sobs were coming from Starfire, but nothing could have been done to comfort her. She was bound hand and foot, practically, to do anyhting to save them.

"The fire is almost beautiful," Beast Boy said, holding onto Starfire and trying to ignore her tears. "If it weren't destroying everything..."

_If it weren't destroying our lives._

* * *

"Raven!" Robin hollored. "Raven!" He coughed on the smoke, choking as if he were falling down into the smoke, but still he moved low to the ground, trying his hardest to find her. His eyes were heavy from the ash that had managed to find him on the floor and worked his way behind his mask, burning his eyes. He could feel the heat on both sides of him, could hear himself choking on the ashes, but he refused to stop. _I have to get to her._

_I can't let this happen to her. This can't happen to us now. We've come this far, struggled so long just to get to thise point, and now I... _

The thought was abruptly cut off by a sound, a desperate, low scraping and what sounded like a voice. Strangled and timid, the one word that came from it's mouth undeniably came from the lips of the person he wanted to talk to the most. "Robin..." The word came again, and then a coughing fit overtook the speaker.

"Raven!" His lungs filling with smoke, fire dancing and threatening to consume him from either side, Robin tried to stand and again fell to his knees, touching the broken pieces of bo-staff at his sides with contempt, as if wondering what he could do with anything shattered or broken.

That was when there was the loud, resonating sound of metal against the side of one of the crates. "Raven..." The strenght came to his muscles even as he coughed harder, this time rising off one knee and listening to the wood as it began to splinter.

That was when he saw her hand dangling over the crate he was hitting and reached behind it, taking her hand and trying his hardest to pull her out from her cramped position, not even fully understanding how she had gotten stuck, forgetting where they were as he held onto her hand.

* * *

_**Hero, Hero, this word you'll never know **_

_**Guess it's too bad  
that everything we have  
is taken away.  
Away, away, away. They're taking it away

* * *

**_

Raven lay across the floor in front of him now, her violet eyes clouded with the smoke, her voice weak as her movements. Robin slumped down against the crates next to her, hand still in hers. He could feel her struggling with her emotions, fighting to keep her fear down within her as she tried to get to her knees.

"Robin..." She whispered. "You saved me..."

"What am I supposed to do?" He asked, his voice just as weak as hers, looking desperatly for some exit, any exit from the building. "Leave the girl I love in a burning building and rush off to save my own ass?"

"Robin... Slade was wrong about you... You really are..." However, Raven's sentance was interupted by the falling of a nearby piece ceiling. Her breathing was becoming weaker and weaker.

_A hero, _she finished in her head.

Robin looked desperatly up, around, trying to see more than one way in the thick smoke, eyes still burning. His mind dipped back to the window that he had seen above them in battle, and one hand slipped to his side, toward a rope that he could use to carry them out of the window.

Without stopping to think, picking up the now-unconcious, slightly burned girl in his arms, he shot the end of the rope until he felt it hook against the wall and began to move along it, using it as his zip-line to reach the window.

"I'm going to save you, Raven," he whispered desperatly, finding that it was getting harder and harder to see. The window was quickly coming into sight, and Robin tried his hardest to get his foot onto the edge, still carrying Raven. However, the thick smoke distorted his vision, and his foot missed the ledge.

As his arms came out to steady himself, the body in his arms began to fall away from him. Down toward the dancing fire, away...

That was when Robin was assumed to have passed out and made his own plunge for the ground below him. "Raven..." He whispered, the strenght to yell, to stand and to save her gone.

Cyborg ran toward where the body hit the pavement, but no one dared go back into the burning rubble for the young girl, to even attempt toRaven. "She's probably gone," he found himself whispering.

A single tear ran down the human side of his face in response to that thought as he lifted his friend and made a sprint for the T-car, leaving Beast Boy to gather the motorcycle and Starfire to look back one last time at the collapsing building before following Cyborg with tears running down her own cheeks.

* * *

Robin awoke two days later with his head pounding, the word 'hero' ringing in his ears for reasons he could not understand. He was amazed to find that he was not in his own bed but hooked up to several machines in the team's living room, with Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire standing at his bedside. 

He lightly touched his face and found his mask still there. His fingertips, even though his gloves, brushed something he had forgotten about- It brushed ash, which could only have come from the fire...

"Where's Raven!" He demanded, trying to sit up, but a strong set of metal hands belonging to his friend Cyborg held him to the bed as Cyborg let out a loud sigh and did his best to utter calming words. "If something has happened, I swear I'll..."

"Rob, chill." Beast Boy's tone was grave and serious, and his eyes were too dark for Raven to be all right. "Robin, Raven... Didnt' make it out of the building. We've searched, but there's no evidence of whether or not she died in that fire..."

Starfire moved over to him and set a hand on his shoulder. "I am most sorry."

Robin looked up at his friends and teammates and found that all words were elusive, stuck in the back of his throat. "She's alive! She's alive and she's fine and... RAVEN! COME IN HERE AND TELL THEM YOU'RE OKAY!"

For the second time, Starfire turned and buried her head into Beast Boy's chest, the tears she had vowed not to let Robin ever see again coming down her face. He sighed and held her against him, letting her cry, because there was nothing else to be done in times like these.

The moments passed, and Robin's shoulders sagged as he fell back. Suddenly, the denial quickly left him, almost as if it had never been there, and he was instead full of anger and rage. He felt the ash-covered mask before ripping it away from his eyes as they began to well over with tears.

And tore it straight into two pieces.

"There is no hero here!" With that, a fist bashed off the side of the bed next to him and let the pieces flutter out of his clentched fists and onto the ground. "I failed! I can't even protect what I care about! Dammit!"

Two halves of a whole idenity. The pieces landed crossing each other in the confusion, as Cyborg tried to calm Robin down and Starfire, now confused and afraid of the angry boy before her, wept against Beast Boy. They rested there despite all of the chaos, as sure as something once broken will always remain so.

* * *

In the meantime, Raven lay face-down upon a strange bed, in a dark room, barely alive but mostly dead. She did not move, nor talk, and one that knew nothing about her would have assumed her dead rather than healing the damage done to her body. 

The one watching her knew, one side of this face gleaming with a hidious orange gleam that was reflected in the eyes of the man behind the mask. "I was lucky to find you, little bird. You're the hero's weakness."

_And whether I drown him in a sea of fire or a sea of emotion, all heros must drown. _

His laugh echoed around the low chamber that was his new hiding place, and the night wore it's touch on all those who had been invovled with the fire.

And on all those who knew that even the hero could drown.

* * *

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: I do not own And the Hero Will Drown by Story of the Year or the Teen Titans. R+R, please. _**


	7. Best of You

**Chapter Seven: Best of You**

_**I've got another confession to make  
I'm your fool  
Everyone's got their chains to break  
Holdin' you**_

Raven awoke with a feeling of peace in her chest as she stared up at the white ceiling before her. That feeling was quick to vanish, however, when she noticed that her hands were bound behind her with a long, heavy rope that refused to come off her hands and that her body, heavily bruised, did not have it's usual blue cloak draped around her form. Her hair, a single lilac strand in her face that she could not force away, smelled of smoke.

For a second, she did nothing but lay there, finally sitting up slowly to look around her. The metal-framed bed she lay upon was the only piece of furnature in the room, and all of the white-washed walls gave the room a heavy, forgotten look. Her blue cloak lay in a torn, fire-burned heap near the door, but for some reason, her head was not with the fire or the mistakes- It was on a vauge and fuzzy memory.

_If Robin pulled me from the fire, then why do I... Why am I burnt? Did I fall? _And then there was the memory that came back to her, the memory of falling, of landing on her legs among the smoke... Why had Robin released her? What had happened? What was wrong with this? _Why would I...?_

Slade smirked as he smiled, looking at the helpless girl who was obviously going over the facts of her capture in her head by the way her eyes looked. He was almost happy he had caged the little bird, because, from what he gathered by her next words, she held extra bargining value.

"Robin... He must have let go, and I must have fallen back in... They probably couldn't find me..." Her words were quiet, but Slade heard them, and they fell like a crystal bell to his ear as a wide smirk lit his evil face.

"So Robin let the girl go. How guilty he must feel, believing her to have perished in a fire... He'll grovel to have you back, my dear. A hero on his knees..." Slade's face seemed to move so that the features were arranged more promonently than ever, fixated in evil. With that, he began to glide down the long hall toward Raven's room.

Raven herself made no attempt to move from the edge of the bed. "Robin... Why didn't anyone come back for me?" Her eyes were still looking around the room, although she had gathered that, save some old crates in the corner, nothing in the room was worth her interest.

Slade heard this as he began to punch the keys on the steel door's keypadand hummed to himself, a quiet little melody of pain and anger. "Easiest to manipulate when they're in pain," he said to himself, which made him laughas quietly as possibleas the door slowly slid upwards into the ceiling to permit him to enter the room. Slowly, he kicked the burnt cloak aside as he entered the room, trying to ignore the heavy scent of smoke that floated up to greet him.

Raven tried to draw herself quickly up to full height as she heard a section of the wall raise itself, obviously a hidden door along the wall where she had failed to look. "Who's there? I reconize that I am surrounded and I cannot escape."

Slade laughed. "Lovely surrender speech, Raven," he said, running a hand over the shiny orange side of his mask, but making no move to draw a weapon or make a threat, which puzzeled Raven and, despite herself, she raised her guard. "But I was expecting more of a thank you. After all, I did rescue..."

"Robin rescused me. What really happened? Where did you find me? Did you take me from my friends?" Raven found herself firing the questions despite her instinct to keep quiet and not say a word about anything. Slade found himself smirking ather obvious attempt to hide any and all emotions from him.

"My dear girl, I found you lying on your back in the fire, with burns that your body did a fine job of healing and bruises from escape attempts and the long fall. Had you not been found, you would most likely be dead. Your friends believe you gone, and from what I can tell, they don't mourn for you." Slade folded his hands in front of himself and did his best to look convincing, which took a bit of effort as he wiped the smirk from his thin lips.

"You... You're lying!" Raven shot, feeling her temper work it's way up. "What did you really do, Slade?"

"Dear child, I may be a cold-hearted man who's made many mistakes, but when it comes to your friends and your abandoned situation, I wouldn't lie to you." Slade paused for a second to plan what to say next. "However, you would make an excellent addition to my team rather than to the very people who are making no attempt to find you."

Raven said nothing, the silence tense and long. _They would never abandon me... They're my family, my friends, and this... _She tried to bring her bound hand to her forehead, but that failed to work, so instead she stared at the far wall and tried to keep her emotions inside. "I..."

_Robin... I tried to tell him things would never work between us... And maybe he really doesn't love me. Maybe I should just go along with my instincts...I at least have to try to stay alive, and Slade is sure to kill me if I don't... At any rate, I have to do this, just survive long enough to talk to Robin._

"What do I have to do?"

"A wise choice, child." Slade held out a long black cloak to her. "Come, we have much to discuss involving you, your supposed death, and how you have come to be here..."

* * *

_**Were you born to resist or be abused?  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?**_

Robin was pacing the living room of Titans Tower- Another day of searching. Three days had gone by since Raven had gone missing, and every time he looked over to the couch and saw no one there the pain welled up in his heart and he wept. Starfire had not been approching him recently, seeming to have decided that Raven would have been the better choice anyway. She was often heard muttering words of their friend, and it was decided that she had never really held the training session with Robin against Raven.

Mainly to keep the leader sane, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire continued to search the city for signs of their team member. Her signal was gone- Either her communication had been smashed in the fall or had burned in the fire with her body. Cyborg shuddered to think that Raven could have just died that easily- It didn't feel right that someone who had survived so much would just perish in a fire.

"We'll find her, dude. Calm yourself." Beast Boy tried to get thier leader to lighten up, although it wasn't much use. Instead of giving an audiable, human response, he smashed the small keyboard in front of him with a tightly-clenched left fist. "Um, if that's calm..."

"We have to find Raven!" _I refuse to accept that she might have died in that fire. I refuse to accept that this is all my fault, that I killed her without meaning to... I refuse to admit I'm not the hero Raven told me I was!_

"I am sure that we can locate Raven," Starfire said, although the lie hit her hard in the heart. Even if she didn't feel so much toward Robin anymore, lying to him, letting him go on in this mad delusion, was a stab at her heart every time she was forced to lie to him. "We will just require more time."

"How much more time can you have! Raven's alive, and she's probably in pain, or..." He trailed off and lowered his voice a few decibils from his yell. "Sorry, Starfire."

"It is all right. You are just in pain and grief... Raven would have called this 'denial,' although I am not sure what that means." Starfire didnt' seem to understand the insult that was, which earned her a glare from Robin all the same, who's temper was already visably pressed to the limits.

Without another word, to avoid another yelling match, he got up and left the room, walking out of the room and throwing his cape so that it rested in front of him and around his shoulders much like a blanket. Slowly he stepped outside and into the light drizzle of rain that had started around him. It mixed well with the single tear falling down his face. "I failed."

"I failed to protect Raven. I failed to even realize what I was doing... I've done nothing but abuse myself these past few days... She really is gone..." The rain fell quickly down his face and he let it do so, letting it mix with the salt water that fell from his eyes.

"I can't give up that easily. Raven... She's alive!" The words quickly came out. _Maybe I am in denial, but I can't let go of the only person and thing that ever mattered to me. It... I just can't._

"I'm going to find you, Raven. I swear I'm going to find you." _Even if it means I have to resist reality to do it._

_

* * *

_

_**Are you gone and onto someone new?  
I needed somewhere to hang my head  
Without your noose  
You gave me something that I didn't have  
But had no use  
I was too weak to give in  
Too strong to lose  
My heart is under arrest again  
But I break loose  
My head is giving me life or death  
But I can't choose  
I swear I'll never give in  
I refuse**_

Robin sighed- Five days. Raven was all but likely to be gone, but he couldn't believe that, not now, not ever. The call that came on wasn't meant to stop him dead in his tracks, or change his day or his life, and yet it did, when the villan reported was said to be one of their own working along-side of Slade. "WHAT!" Robin hollored as Cyborg read the report. "Raven... She wouldn't!"

"Robin, you've gotta calm down. People may not know what they've seen... After all, Raven probably isn't..." Cyborg bit back on the word 'alive', knowing it would set Robin off. "Probably isn't involved."

Instead of an answer, Robin's body shifted into an auto mode, mostly run by his own adrenline. He ended up in the doorway, panting hard with the door before him letting the last rays of the dying sun into the room. "Come on! Titans, let's go!"

The others sighed. By the time they were outside the door and within sight of Robin, Robin was strattling his motorcycle, reving it while he waited for them to take their respective positions. Cyborg ran to his car and ignored his seatbelt- There was no one shotgun to remind him to put it on anyway.

Robin's mind was racing as he began to fly forward. _Would Raven really have done it? _Robin wondered. _Did I do something to her? She has to be alive, but... I hurt her, and I left her... Could I have killed her? No, I didn't, but I must have..._

He heard both the tires on the R-cycle and Cyborg's car squeak as he almost missed a turn down a narrow side-street. The black aura should have been enough to give him a hint or a warning, but he ignored it and continued to move closer and closer to what he assumed had to be the battle scene.

Slade smirked to see them coming. "Just like I told you, Raven. You are the bait, and they will flock to you. Bring Robin to me or die trying, understood? You'll also die if you refuse my plan, so I would suggest you..."

"Shut up. I know what I'm doing." Raven could feel her heart racing, her nerves already on edge, and Slade standing behind her was not making things any better. "My other friends won't be harmed in this, understood?"

"Do you really think you're the boss of me, little Raven? They're free targets until you bring the boy back to me. You don't make the rules here. I do." He paused, trying to think of something else to say that would put his new apprintice in her place. "Oh, and might I add that the outfit of evil suits you?"

Raven's cloak had been replaced with a heavy, black one, the orange 'S' symbol resting on the crest of the hood, a smaller verson of the same 'S' placed on the right side of her chest. All her red gems, both in her belt and at her wrist, had been replaced with orange ones, and her eyes were full of a strange hate as they watched Slade. Instead of answering him, however, she began to glide slowly forward, in the direction of her friends.

Robin was, in the meantime, running about thirty yards in front of the rest of the team, in the direction of the gliding figure in all black. Part of him was relieved- If it truly was Raven, then he hadn't killed her. On the other hand, it meant Raven hated him enough to change sides, to go to the thing she hated most with the hopes of getting rid of Robin. He was aurging into his communicator. "You three take Slade. I can win Raven over if I just..."

"Man, do you know how much emotional stress you'll be putting on yourself? Let us tackle Raven, you go after Slade!" Cyborg was holloring, trying to catch up with Robin.

"Yeah, man. Your feeling's will get in the way and then you'll really be in trouble. Let us handle Raven!" Beast Boy was trying to be firm and insistent, helping Cyborg, but instead he caused Robin to explode.

"Beast Boy, you really need to learn to keep your mouth shut. I'm the leader, and what I say goes! I am handling Raven!" With that, he snapped the small round disk shut, temper still throbbing through his veins.With that, he was within five yards of the figure- And could tell it was Raven who stared at him from under the long black cloak, something unreadable crossing her eyes.

"Raven! You're alive! Why are you...?" Before he could ask the rest of his question, however, he was slammed in the small of his back by a hurtled garbage can and fell to his knees. The rest of the team had already been confronted by a smirking Slade, who was making gestures behind Raven's back that he knew she could see.

_My friends... I have to make Robin understand and save them... I have to get out of this... This is life or death now, and I have totreat it like that. _Determination showing in her face now,Raven planted a kick on Robin's downed body, trying to ignore the self-hatred and pain she was feeling. "Robin..."

"Raven... Why would you do this?"

Raven bit back the urge to tell him she didn't get a choice as she hit him again. Robin stood, resolving to fight back even though he felt weak, powerless. "I don't want to do this... But I won't lose if this really is the path you've chosen, Raven."

"Robin, you and I need to talk... I can explain, but you'll have to defeat me before I can... I have to take you to Slade if you want to save anyone's life. He'll hurt our friends... He'll kill me, he'll kill you... And I can't let that happen." And with that, Robin found himself laying flat on the ground again, trying to comprehend what Raven had just said as she stood above him.

The fight had to happen now.

* * *

_**Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Has someone taken your faith?  
Its real, the pain you feel  
You trust, you must  
Confess  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Oh...**_

_**Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh...**_

The other members of the team watched with an increased level of shock as Raven threw their beloved leader to the ground. "Why would friend Raven do such a thing?" Starfire asked, visably shaking despite all attempts to control herself. Slade, on the other hand, had stopped fighting with them to watch with a look of mild amusement on his twisted face.

"Your friend really would do anything tosave you. She's very confused right now, oh yes... She not only believes herself abandoned and forgotten, but she believes she can keep anymore harm from coming to you if she brings your leader to me. Gulibile little thing, really..." Slade smirked, his face mocking them.

"So you're the reason she's trying to hurt him! You..." Beast Boy trailed off, any and all words he could have said trailing off at the tip of his tounge from his memory. "You're using Raven to get what you want!"

"The little girl doesn't even realize I'm going to keep her alive once I have what I want... She'll be a good reminder to Robin of why he will not mess up as long as he's in my service." With that, he moved forward on Cyborg, blocking the battle from view as the Titans were sent back into a whirl of action. However, Slade's good mood was apparent in his fight, and he dodged them at every turn as if their attacks were nothing.

"You're going to pay for manipulating Raven!" Cyborg hollored, almost landing a sonic cannon blast on Slade but instead hitting the nearby brick wall as Slade, using his bo-staff for leverage, made his way to the doorframe of the next building by the time the blast reached where he had been standing only moments before.

"My dear, it's not my fault Raven let me get the best of her. This could all have been easily avoided if she hadn't been so willing to believe that she could see the people she loved again, or that she could have manipulated me into letting her go." Slade's face lit up as Beast Boy charged at him and he used the staff for leverage yet again- Now he was closer to Starfire, although her attacks were fuzzy and unfocused as she heard Beast Boy hit the wall and she was managing to miss Slade at every turn.

"Raven's not the only one, either," he added vaugly. "I can easily get the best of all of you just by standing here and talking. I could tell you about your friend's pain, or about how hopeless the situation is, or how useless you are..." Shot after swift shot missed him, which was proof that his plan was working quite well.

_Almost too simple, _Slade thought to himself with a chuckle.

* * *

_**Has someone taken your faith?  
Its real, the pain you feel  
The life, the love  
You die to heal  
The hope that starts  
The broken hearts  
You trust, you must  
Confess**_

_**Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?**_

Robin sighed- This was a stalemate. Something in him could tell Raven didn't actually want to finish him, didn't actually want to hurt him, but continued to drive on the half-hearted battle anyway. "Raven, you have to just tell me what's going on if you want us to get out of this..." His eyes glanced toward the other battle- Their friends were being defeated as he spoke, and the time he was wasting wasn't going to help them.

That was when her voice came toward him. "Robin, he's going to kill... To kill all of you if I don't do this for him. I have to do this, don't you understand? You and I... I have to take you over there, and we have to find a way to escape so that he doesn't kill you, or Beast Boy or Starfire or Cyborg. It was this or be killed."

"So you just let him abuse you? You just turned your back on the team, on the people who love you... So you just turned your back on me? You just let him play up on the pain inside you and turn you into his minion? He'll never keep his word, Raven!"

"Do you think I haven't thought about that? But Robin, if I hadn't done that, then I really would be dead, and... I didn't want to die because then you would have blamed yourself..." Raven turned her face away from him. "I know I'm being stupid, but I just couldn't make you go through that..." With that, she noticed Slade watching her and threw another punch at him.

Robin caught her fist and flung her backward, to the ground, so that she was laying there. "Raven, I didn't mean it like that. It's just that you... It just seemed like..." _I can't do anything right. Now I've upset her..._

Blood was coming out of a narrow cut along her left shoulder where, when Robin had thrown her back, the fabric had ripped and her skin had recived a shallow wound. Rather than healing it, she let it go and continued to bleed. "What about when you betrayed the team? Did I give you hell for it? You weren't even trying to save any of us. You..." Her voice trailed off, the bitter edge to it taking him aback.

"Raven... Raven, I didn't mean..."

"Maybe I was right for trying to break up with you back at the tower... You and Starfire probably don't fight like this... She probably doesn't try to insult you... Or end up doing things that break your heart..." With that, Raven moved away from him, moving backwards along the ground and trying to ignore her bleeding wound.

"Raven!" Robin called, but it was too late- Slade had seen them, possibly heard her words, and was coming up behind her with a quick, loose stride, pursued by the other Titans with a quickness in his step. His hand came out of nowhere and, before she knew what to make of it, Raven had been lifted off the ground.

"We had a deal, apprintice," Slade said. "You failed your end of the deal, now I get to do what I promised I would do if you didn't..." He turned to Robin. "Are you going to attack me, or are you afraid for your little girlfriend?"

The words struck at Robin's heartstrings. "Titans, get him!" Robin called in complete desperation. Despite the fact that Raven was looking at him with a hollow, empty look, presumably the look of a broken heart, he couldn't leave her there. _I promised I'd find her, and now I have to protect her._

Slade dodged four out of the five attacks, but it was highly doubtable that he had been prepared for Raven's attack as she landed a black-fisted blow to the side of his face. "Stop trying to get the best of me, Slade! You're a liar and a theif, and you threatened people you had no right to threaten just to get through to me..."

Slade grimanced: This was not working out as planned. Without another word, but witha meaningful look at Raven, he turned on his heel and began to run, running away from them quickly. He paused for only a second anduttered a few words."I'll be back, Robin. You will join me like the evil you are. The facade of hero is all a lie, after all."

"Titans, get..." Robin started to call the command, to give the chase, but his eyes instead fell on Raven, who's open wound was bleeding and her face was set in a tight mask of pain.

Nothing had gone according to plan, not for Slade, and not for Robin. As he stared into Raven's eyes, he found that he could not read them- And that scared him more than hate ever would have.

* * *

_**I've got another confession my friend  
I'm no fool  
I'm getting tired of starting again  
Somewhere new**_

_**Were you born to resist or be abused?  
I swear I'll never give in  
I refuse**_

It was late by the time a now fully-healed Raven emerged from her small bedroom to join the realm of the living, or at least the living room of the Titans. _I let Slade get the better of me, and it took all I ever really had to find my way back here... I hurt Robin, I hurt my friends... Maybe I should just clear out and leave..._

Starfire gave Raven a hug as soon as the doors opened to reveal the other girl. "You are unharmed and..." As Starfire began to babble, Raven's eyes went to the other end of the couch, to where Robin was sitting with his arms and legs crossed. He looked up, but refused to meet Raven's eyes even with his masked ones.

"Raven." Robin's voice sounded rather hoarse, unused to an extent where Raven could easily believe he had not used it since the battle yesterday. "Glad to see you're okay."

She gave a cold, stiff nod, but nothing more. She no longer felt like being a fool to Robin or anyone else, nor did she feel much like talking. Cyborg seemed to sense this when he gave her a plate of food and left her alone in the kitchen. No one came in to disturb her, a welcome change.

"I just thought if I started over here, no one would trick me... I forgot that I never should have let Slade take advantage of me, and I let my feelings guide..." Raven sighed. No matter how many times it came down to it, she should have escaped, or died trying, rather than fought with Robin on that rooftop.

"I refuse to let myself love him anymore. What he said..." The words still burned in the back of her mind and she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort, suddenly feeling very, very small.

_**Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Has someone taken your faith?  
Its real, the pain you feel  
You trust, you must  
Confess  
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?  
Oh...**_

Robin lay in his bed that night, listening to Beast Boy's snores resonating through the tower. "Raven... Someone got the best of me, something inside me, and I hurt you..."

He resolved, against his own strong will, to try to talk to her the next day. _I've screwed things up so much... Nothing else could go wrong, could they? I really didn't mean to... Raven..._

Sadly, something else can always go wrong, as he was soon to find out.

**_Raventhedarkgoddess: Best of you, by the Foo Fighters. I don't own the song... R+R. Sorry this is such a crappy chapter, I'm half-asleep._**


	8. Right Here

**Chapter Eight: Right Here**

_**I know I've been mistaken,  
But just give me a break and see the changes that I've made.  
I've got some imperfections,  
But how can you collect them all and throw them in my face?**_

Raven was laying on her bed, eyes turned toward the ceiling, ignoring the fact that it was three AM and dark, ignoring the fact that her body needed sleep if she was to even continue living like this, eating only one meal a day and hiding in the wreckage of her room. She picked up a book off the floor nearby and tried to read by the light of the single candle, but failed to read anything, mind refusing to focus.

"Robin..." She whispered, sitting up and drawing her knees to her chest as she stared out into the night, pushing the book to the floor with a burst of mind energy that came up unbidden with the name. The tattered curtains over her window moved, shifted, and then quickly died back down, revealing nothing, unable to cover the silvery clouds slidng past the windowand the light shining inthrough the darkness.

"Robin, this is all just a big mistake..." She looked around the wreckage of her room. Books and scrolls lay everywhere, the single candle lighting her room with a glow that seemed to say less about who she was than who she had been. "You're right, I was a fool, but can't you just forgive it even once?"

The only answer was a cold howl of wind through one of her open windows. She sighed and it slammed shut, ringing against the empty shelves where her books, now on the floor, had been.

Raven could almost still see herself standing there, looking over at Robin from across the alley, actually trying to hurt him. _He's right, I was being so stupid then... I should have just tried to figure something else out, should have done SOMETHING besides let Slade get the best of me..._

_But I didn't. I let Slade get the best of me, let him talk me into hurting Robin... _She looked over to the door- Part of her was expecting Robin to come up the steps again and try to reenter her room. Although she wanted to see him, she didn't want to face his words and would hold the door closed while he yelled to her to come out, ignoring him.

She sighed to see that he wasn't coming and lay back on the bed again. At the same time she felt regretful and miserable, however, there was a strong surge of anger within her. _Did he really have to take it all and shove it in my face? I understand how much I messed up... I know I'm not perfect, but he didn't have to go off on me like that..._

She snuffed the candle out, killing the light and warmth around her, the only light that had penetrated the darkness the past three days. "He and I will have to get this sorted out one way or another... Even if he hates me for what I said, I have to get this off my chest... I'm still right here waiting for him..."

Her left hand clentched into a fist as she thought it through, unable to decide if she was more hurt or angry at Robin. Slowly, carefully, Raven closed her eyes- Avoiding reality was something she was getting quite good at.

**_But you always find a way to keep me right here waiting.  
You always find the words to say to keep me right here waiting.  
And if you chose to walk away I'd still be right here waiting,  
Searching for the things to say to keep you right here waiting._**

_**I hope you're not intending  
To be so condescending, it's as much asI can take.  
And you're so independent.  
You just refuse to bend so I keep bending till I break.**_

Robin looked down at the screen before him, his eyes turned away from his teammates, who's very presence was infuriating to him these days, seeing as he was on edge and had a very short fuse, temper just under the surface. He banged his fingers into the keys, vainly searching for some kind of villan report, anything he could take the pent-up rage out on, but there was nothing.

He forced himself to brush some of the hair away from the eyeholes of his mask: There was no point in his fustration, yet there it was, a boiling sensation of anger at both himself and Raven and a pain stemmed deep within his chest he couldn't explain, that of a broken heart. He could still hear his accusations on the roof, could still see her taking them the wrong way and turning away from him. On his back still resided marks from the battle, and on his mind lay emotional scars- His sleep had been hindered and his misery still showed on his face.

The other three sat silently on the couch, away from Robin. Beast Boy choked back a quiet cough- He didn't want Robin's attention, least of all now with the mood he was in. He watched Robin sadly move away from the computer screen, seemingly unaware of how late at night it was- The others had been awoken by his movements about downstairs.

"Um, Rob, don't you think we'd hear the alarm? That is kind of why I installed it..." Cyborg ran one hand over his head nervously- The last thing he needed was for Robin to start screaming at him again, having spent enough nights with him to know that that comment had probably hit Robin hard in the chest.

Robin's mind was reeling and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from going spaztic on Cyborg. "Fine," he snapped, slamming the power switch a bit too hard so that the computer snapped off with a nasty, loud crack and Cyborg moved forward to check the system- Robin could only sigh before disappering through the side door of their home and out into the night.

_Why do I stand here and look at her windows like I'm waiting?_ He asked himself, looking up at the windows where the tattered curtains blew in an unseen breeze. "Raven..."

_Raven what? If she would just talk to me... _He picked up arockand threw it toward the window in slight fustration, although it fell several feet short, landing instead with a harmless thud against the lower part of the tower and then on the ground, where it bounced out of his sight.

"If I could just say something to have you back, I'd do it..." Kicking furiously at air, he snapped. "SLADE! You're going to DIE for this!" Hair flying wildly as he began to sweat, he moved again and again toward whatever demon was inside him, whatever only he could see. "You crushed my life, and I'm going to crush you... YOU...!"

Robin was cut off, however, by the sound of his communicator- Cyborg's face appeared in front of his, although the expression did not change to see that Robin was covered in sweat and quite tired-looking. "Robin, it's Slade. We've gotten Raven out of her room- Come on and help us and you'll get to see her."

At the mention of Raven, all the confused emotions lept from his chest to his throat. "I'll be there," he managed to force out before snapping the communicator shut and stepping back, running toward the tower with everything he had left in him, just in time to see Raven come out behind the rest of the team and climb, shotgun, into the T-car next to Cyborg. Her eyes met with his for a few seconds, and then she was gone, the door slamming shut and Robin moving, on auto-piolet, to straddle the R-cycle.

The speed came to him unbidden as his R-cycle began to speed away from the tower in the darkness, the image of the swinging cloak and the cold face within his mind, burned there perminatly.

* * *

Slade smirked to even see them in the same general area as one another- Now to do his work, to manipulate minds and hearts and destroy the thin bond that might have had a chance of holding them together. "So nice to see you, Robin." 

"YOU!" Robin shouted, leaping forward with a cry, trying to force his leg to give him a little more leverage on Slade in order to give a bit more of a high kick to the head. Slade merely stepped back, however, dodging both Robin and the rain of starbolts Starfire was firing at him with a chuckle.

"Nice to see you remember me, Robin. How are things between you and the other bird?" He pretended to spot Raven, who hovered off to one side at Cyborg's shoulder. "I notice that the pair of you aren't speaking. What's wrong, Robin, did you do something to upset her?"

"You know perfectly well what's going on! If you hadn't made Raven go against me, none of this would have happened!" Robin tried to punch him, and Beast Boy tried to ram him from behind, but both were dodged and the sonic cannon shot missed by inches.

"Touching, really. Raven just stands there, ignoring while I crush you..." Robin felt his feet go away from under him and Slade was suddenly standing over him. "I guess I was right, wasn't I, little girl?" Slade paused to look at Raven while kicking Robin in the jaw. "Love really can't conquer everything, now can it?"

Raven tried to avoid becoming angry, but it wasn't working- Seeing Robin on the ground, the blood starting to run from his jaw, other members of the team falling back. "Shut... UP!" The beautiful violet eyes split unexpectedly, and four red ones looked at Slade, stared at him in total and complete anger.

"I'm going to kill you!" The words could not have sounded much more serious if she had wanted them to- And then she backed them by moving forward.

_**But you always find a way to keep me right here waiting.  
You always find the words to say to keep me right here waiting.  
And if you chose to walk away I'd still be right here waiting,  
Searching for the things to say to keep you right here waiting.**_

_**I've made a commitment,  
I'm willing to bleed for you.  
I needed fulfillment,  
I found what I need in you.**_

Slade let out a small show of his shock, for he was startled by the gothic's angry outburst, and he could tell she would stop at nothing- Her emotions had reached an obvious boiling point. The other three backed off- This was to be Raven's battle. She would obviously not permit interference, least of all in her current state.

Robin stared up at her, looking at her with slight fear on his face. Starfire had turned to bury her head in Beast Boy's shoulder, and Robin ran one hand over his jaw, trying to ignore any and all emotional pain to get up and get out of the way. He did manage, with great pain, to roll over, just in time to see Raven and Slade face one another, hatred in Raven's face.

"Don't ever touch him again! Dont' ever make this team come after you again! Don't ever mess with my life or Robin or..." The sentace didn't complete itself as she kicked out, missing Slade by only inches due to a quick last-second move.

Slade could tell this was skating on thin ice- Time to let her work out some of that anger before departing, now that he could no longer work the two apart."It's almost touching, after you abandon people who are down, you help them." Slade tried to strike back, but Raven was actually too quick for him.

"I don't think you understand, Slade," Raven hissed coldly. "I never abandon the people I care about."The attacks were swift and quick, and Slade could quickly feel the battle slipping out of his control- He would have to run soon if he wanted to escape with his life, which wassaying something for him.

"Trust me, little girl, the harder you fight it, the truer it becomes." Slade moved out of her way, preparing to make his escape, but the kick came out of nowhere- Robin had managed to rise to his feet while Slade was distracted. The pair of them stood over him, pure anger in both faces, everything between them forgotten.

"That may be so," Raven hissed, slowly but surely calming down, "But that doesn't mean I can't fight it anyway."

Seeing his chance, Slade rolled away from her, landing swiftly on his feet and using his bo-staff- Landing on a roof about twenty feet away, he sprinted off into the dying night. "Should we pursue?" Cyborg asked Robin, who had fallen slightly down on his left leg in a kneeling posistion.

"No," Robin replied. "He'll be back." That was when he noticed just how hard Raven was breathing, blood trickling from a few cuts in both of her arms. "Raven, are you okay?"

"This is nothing, Robin." And with that, she turned and walked away from him, wounding him deeper than any knife ever could have.

As the sun came up, Robin settled himself down on the roof to watch it, gazing upward into the sky. "She was so committed back there..." Briefly, he wondered if anyone had even seen her since they had come home.

"Robin?"

_**Why can't you just forgive me?  
I don't want to relive all the mistakes I've made along the way  
But I always find a way to keep you right here waiting  
I always find the words to say to keep you right here waiting**_

_**But you always find a way  
To keep me right here waiting  
You always find the words to say to keep me right here waiting  
And if I chose to walk away would you be right here waiting  
Searching for the things to say to keep me right here waiting**_

Robin wheeled around in time to see Raven coming over to him. "Robin, can we talk?" Without waiting for any real answer, she sat down beside him, trying to find the words to say, her heart pounding in her head. _I have to tell him how I feel before it's too late..._

"Raven, why did you defend me like that back there?" He asked her suddenly. "You and I... I thought we were done, but you defended me like that and... Well, I'm just curious. Why'd you do it?"

"Because I love you. How could I not want to protect you? These past few days... Robin, I'm sorry."

"You're not the one who should be sorry. I'm the one who messed up... I'm the one who should be asking you to forgive me... I didn't mean to hurt you, Raven... It's just that, when you said I might be better off with Starfire, I..."

She silenced him, placing her fingers over his lips. "We've still got a lot to do, Robin. Slade needs to be found and brought down, and the team needs to be pulled back together." She paused, catching her eyes with his, holding his chin up and forcing them to lock eyes. "But you can do it. You're a strong person and a good leader."

"But what if I can't, Raven?" He asked, his voice suddenly small and pathetic. "What if I can't pull the team back together? What if I can't make everything better for the team?"

Raven simply shook her head. "Then you'll have your team to back you up." She gave him a hug, gentle and understanding. "I want you toknow I'm always going to be here for you, okay? Whenever something goes wrong, I'll be right here waiting for you."

Robin gave a small smile and Raven touched his lips to hers. "I love you," he whispered as they broke apart.

"I love you too."

**Raventhedarkgoddess: Right Here, by Staind. Kind of a crap chapter, sorry, I didn't get in until 12 from the football game last night. Not that you care- Enjoy, and remember I will use flames to light my homework on fire.**


	9. Getting Away With Murder

_Raventhedarkgoddess: Just a small warning, this chapter was born of anger and may be riddled with error, not to mention just a bad chapter.. Song: Getting Away With Murder, by Papa Roach. Enjoy if you can._

**Chapter Nine: Getting Away With Murder**

_**Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness,  
I need to calculate,  
What creates my own madness.  
And I'm addicted to your punishment,  
And you're the master,  
And I am waiting for disaster.**_

Raven and Robin were sitting together in comfortable, understanding silence when the alarm finally went off, ringing and scaring them both so that Robin dropped her hand and stood, getting up off the couch and doing what appeared to be a very controlled run over to the computer.

"Slade." He spat the word with hate and anger, eyes locked on the screen as the other three Titans began to come into the room. "We're going to finish this tonight!"

"Are you sure you want to just charge right in there?" Cyborg asked Robin nervously, knowing that Robin's true problem came when he grew spiteful, hateful, and failed to think things through. "I mean, we don't want anyone getting hurt, and you could just be running into a trap..."

Robin grumbled something inaudiable- He had stopped listening to his friends long ago, stopped listening to anything but the alarm, the ideas in his head of payback and punishment for Slade. _He's not going to rule my life like this anymore, _he thought to himself. _Never again._

"...Might be right, Robin." Raven had taken his wrist in her pale hand to stop him from subconciously hitting it off the keyboard. "Are you sure we won't get into any kind of trouble?"The expression written on her face said it all- She was still slightly afraid of Slade, although she would never admit that to anyone.

"No. We're going to be fine, just fine." _I'm going to make it fine. _"We're going to win, and Slade is going to be sorry he ever messed with the Teen Titans." As he said these words, he found his fingers clenching around Raven's. She winced slightly but said nothing- It wasn't as if Robin had meant to hurt her.

"So we are going?" Starfire asked slowly, watching Raven's face from where she stood behind Beast Boy, seeing the grimance that came to her face. "We shall go and defeat Slade?"

Robin suddenly dropped Raven's hand and ran his fingers over hers apoligetically- He really hadn't meant to hurt her. "I'm sorry, Rae... It just kind of happened, I didn't mean to..."

Raven shushed him. "I know you didn't mean it." All the same, though, she pulled away from him and forced her hood up, which masked her beautiful face from him and widened the gap he hadn't been able to shake the feeling still existed between them, in spite of all their love for each other.

"Come on, then!" Beast Boy called, standing between Cyborg and Starfire. "Are you guys going to kiss and make up or save it?" Raven glided over, presumably to wack Beast Boy in the head, but Robin found himself looking out into the dusky grey night.

"I'm coming for you, Slade," he whispered. "And you'll be sorry you ever hurt the people I care about." And with that, Robin turned, just in time to see Beast Boy take a fantastic blow to the head from Raven.

The jovial nature between the two was a bad example of humor, and did no justice in forshadowing the dark events to come, events not even Robin could have predicted.

**_I feel irrational,  
So confrontational,  
To tell the truth again,  
I am getting away with murder.  
It isn't possible,  
To never tell the truth,  
But the reality is I'm getting away with murder.  
(Getting away, Getting away, Getting away)_**

_**I drink my drink and I don't even want to.  
I think my thoughts when I don't even need to.  
I never look back cause I don't even want to,  
And I don't need to,  
Because I'm getting away with murder.**_

Robin found himself looking up in eager anticipation of the battle, focused on the beating Slade was going to recive. The scene was typical of one Slade might start- A few homes burned brillently in the outskirts of the city, lighting up the night sky like sick, horrible torches. "You won't hurt anyone else!" Robin shouted, and rushed forward, leaving the others to quickly scramble after him.

Slade turned with a smirk on his face. "I honestly didn't think you'd show up, Robin. So nice to see you all looking so safe and happy... It really ruins my day. We'll have to change that, now won't we?" His eyes fell on Raven. "I'm sure your girlfriend would be proud to assist me again, and..."

Robin struck out. The blow had come from nowhere- Slade hadn't been prepared for such a forceful blow and staggered, which appeared to be all Robin needed, because he jumped on Slade with afrightening amount of force, much like a tiger going in for a final kill. "You leave Raven out of this! You're not going to manipulate or hurt anyone else, do you hear me! I'll make sure of it!"

"My my, aren't we defensive...?" Even though Slade was actually a bit afraid- Anger had a tendency to make Robin strong as well as less accurate- he refused to stop mocking the young boy. "I thought you would have learned the first time, why defend her honor when she doesn't have any honor for you to defend?"

That triggered another stream of punching, Robin's words coming as rapidly as his arms, which were pounding every inch of Slade they could reach, first his mask, then his chest, slamming him over and over in a pure, straight rage no one had ever seen from him before.

Slade managed to gain slight leverage with his bo-staff- Just enough so that he could shove Robin off his chest- and stood up, towering over the boy with his usual smirk on his face. "It really isn't polite of you to assalute an unready enemy, Robin."

"And it really isn't polite of you," Robin shot back, whipping out his own bo-staff, "To breath the same air as the innocent people you torment and kill to try to get to me!" The staffs clashed with slight sparkage, and Slade planted his feet a bit further into the concrete- Robin was not making this as easy as had been hoped.

Slade let out a little laugh. "Is that the best insult you could come up with? I don't care if you think I'm indecent. You're the one that abandons the people you're now trying to protect, the one pretending to be a hero. You just came back to them because you had nowhere else to go, because you knew they'd take you back. You're as pathetic and spineless as I am, Robin." He lept a few feet into the air, neatly avoiding a forcefully flying bo-staff. "So who's really the indecent one?"

"SHUT UP!" Robin snapped, losing his control (what little he actually had left) and catching Slade with a swift smack that knocked his staff away from him, so that it rolled and clattered to the other side of the pavement, landing at Raven's feet. Raven watched the brawl in absoute shock, rooted to the spot.

_How can he be doing this...? _Raven thought, still frozen to the spot. _How can he really be so cold, so full of hate... Do I really matter that much to him, or is this a grude match...? What's going on? _Even though it was the last time she should be having stray thoughts, it just kind of happened, and Raven found herself unable to shake the horrible feeling of a churning stomach, watching what had now become a match of man to man, both staffs having been discarded by the opponent.

"Dude, what is Robin's problem?" Beast Boy asked Cyborg in a small voice. "It's like he wants to beat Slade so badly that Slade will never rise again..."

"I think that might be the case." Cyborg heard his own words with some shock, even though he had known it to be true all along. "I think that's what he's trying to do."

_**I feel irrational,  
So confrontational,  
To tell the truth again,  
I am getting away with murder.  
It isn't possible,  
To never tell the truth,  
But the reality is I'm getting away with murder.  
(Getting away, Getting away, Getting away, Getting away, Getting away, Getting away, Getting away, Getting away, Getting away with murder)**_

_**Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness,  
I need to calculate,  
What creates my own madness.  
And I'm addicted to your punishment,  
And you're the master,  
And I am craving this disaster.**_

Starfire reached out a hand and touched Starfire, which caused the other girl to give a start and jump a few feet, bending a small lamp post behind them. "Friend Raven, are you all right?"

"I can't believe this is happening... Starfire, I don't want him to become a murderer... He's a hero, so what does he think he had to prove by beating Slade?" She watched Starfire shake her head listlessly and sighed- The only person who knew the the answer was now about to kill someone, and she would never know.

"This is completely irrational..."

Robin didn't quite know where the anger had come from, but it was as much a part of him now as anything ever was- The punches, the kicks, the desire to hurt Slade until Slade completely gave into the pain, was there now. He could see nothing else but his own hands, destructive hands. "If I'm not a hero, then at least I can do a favor and kill the man who showed me what I really am!"

"Robin, you're only going to hurt more people if you murder me." It was not a plea but a statement.

"It's not murder!" Robin snapped. "If you'd just give up, you know I'd stop!" Even as he said that, however, he dealt a strong blow to Slade's face, causing him to let out a moan of pain. "But you won't give up, will you!" Robin found him to be beside himself with fustration he didn't understand.

"You wouldn't. You're determined to kill me. And besides, a true man would never give up to the likes of you. You could be so much more than this... I'd even bring your little girlfriend as a pet, if you'd let me."

"That does it! You never talk about Raven like that! NEVER!" The next blow brought something that caused Raven to bury her head in Cyborg's side to avoid looking anymore- There was a loud, sick crack, the breaking of a human bone, and Starfire hid behind Beast Boy.

"Oh, now look what you've done..." Slade hissed. "Not a murder, a hero. I'll remember that one. Well, live a good life as a hero... And I'll see you in hell, Robin."

Robin was about to retort, but he looked back at his friends: the guys stared at him through wide eyes, each trying to comfort one of the girls, who seemed truely afraid of the scene before them. Robin sank to the ground next to Slade and heard a dead sound- Slade's last breath went out in a weak rattle.

"I caused this disaster... What have I done?" Tears slid through the crimsiom flecks on his face, and Robin wept there on his own, hands buried in his head.

_How could I have... Why did I let myself lose everything like that?_

_Raven, I am so, so sorry..._

_**I feel irrational,  
So confrontational,  
To tell the truth again,  
I am getting away with murder.  
It isn't possible,  
To never tell the truth,  
But the reality is I'm getting away with murder.  
(Getting away, Getting away, Getting away)**_

_**I feel irrational,  
So confrontational,  
To tell the truth again,  
I am getting away with murder.  
It isn't possible,  
To never tell the truth,  
But the reality is I'm getting away with murder.**_

The three guys were sitting alone on the couch three days later,- Raven and Starfire out for a long walk, Raven claiming she needed to get out of the tower- eyes avoident and very hesitant to speak. Robin had said almost nothing in the three long days, nor had he once looked at Raven. The others were afraid to say anything at all for fear of his temper, and so they sat in silence.

"Do you think she'll even want to talk to me again?"

"You could just try talking to her," Cyborg suggested. "I mean, you haven't even made eye contact with her once. As afraid as she is of you, I'm sure she'll understand."

"That's what I'm afraid of, that she won't understand. I don't even really understand why I let myelf get so irriational... I mean, I hurt her. I hurt Starfire and you two."

"This is Raven, dude," Beast Boy pointed out. "If we can forgive you, she can forgive you. She loves you."

"I guess I'll have to talk to her..."

_I have to talk to her. I'm sorry I murdered someone. I've screwed up. I'm not a hero, I'm a liar and an idiot. Raven..._

_Raven, please don't have condemed me for getting away with murder._


	10. Hangin' By A Moment

**Chapter Ten: Hangin' By A Moment**

_**Desperate for changing,  
Starving for truth.  
Closer where I started  
Chasing after you.**_

Robin sighed; Everywhere he had looked was everywhere she wasn't. Raven was clearly avoiding him- Not that he could blame her. _Who could? She put everything she had into loving a guy who just turned out to be some murderer... I couldn't even keep my promises..._

He let his eyes fall over the tower, sadness etched into them. _It's so close to the place where we used to stand and talk... So close to the place where we became a team, lost the team... Struggled for reform, lost each other... Messed up..._

The thought struck him hard. _My whole life has been here... My life as a leader, a commander, a worthwhile person, and now as nothing... It's like Slade said, I'm not a hero. I'm living in a delusion where I keep coming back to the same point... But why?_

Confused and alone, Robin continued to slosh along the muddy ground, looking for any sign of Raven, anything at all that could have lead them back together. However, he got nothing but a gradually more cold leg and a sinking heart. He dropped to his knee in silence and exastusion.

"There is no such thing as a hero. I let Slade win... I let Slade rob me of everything important to me, and everything's changed so much..." Robin gasped for breath sadly, trying not to cry.

A hand slowly came down on his shoulder, gentle and uncaring. "If you're so desperate, why can't you just talk to me?" He knew who it was, and he reached back to take her hand, shocked that she pulled him to his feet and out of the mud. "You can't do this to yourself..."

_**I'm falling even more in love with you,  
Letting go of all I've held onto.  
I'm standing here until you make me move,  
I'm hanging by a moment here with you.**_

_**Forgetting all I'm lacking,  
Completely incomplete.  
I'll take your invitation,  
You take all of me.**_

_**Now... I'm falling even more in love with you,  
Letting go of all I've held onto.  
I'm standing here until you make me move,  
I'm hanging by a moment here with you.**_

Robin leaned against her in spite of himself, resting against her as they started to move away from the rut his knees has . "Raven..."

"Don't talk." The commands came from her lips softly, slowly and reassuringly despite everything going on. Arm around him, she guided him toward the tower. However, he grabbed her hand and sank down in the dirt, and Raven slowly followed suit to sit down next to him.

"How long have you been outside in the rain?" He asked her.

"It matters not. Robin... You have to stop beating yourself up. Please... When I saw you like that, I thought you might already be gone from me... I don't hate you, I just wanted time to be by myself..." She paused, holding onto his hand silently. "What happened doesn't make you a bad person."

It almost sounded like a desperate invitation. _**Believe me,** _her voice seemed to say. _**Give up and belive me** **when I say everything will be all right**. I want to, _he thought. _I want to more than anything in the world, Raven... But I can't._

"How can I not be a bad person? Look at what I did, Raven! Look at everything I've done!" He pulled away from her and, unexpectedly and with more force than expected, he stood up. "I know you want to believe I'm a good person... But I'm just not. I lost it, and I hurt everyone..."

Raven paused for a second. "This isn't about what just happened, is it?" She said in her all-knowing way, and Robin shook his head. "This is about before... This is about last year..." She looked up at him and, trying to steady herself against the wall, stood. "Do you really think I would hate you after all this time?"

Robin didn't answer, mind reeling, heart heavy. "You have every right to hate me," he replied. "I hate myself. I hurt you, and then I abandoned you. Like it didn't even matter. I went off to try to find another idenity... And when I came back to try to set things right, I kill someone!"

Raven paused for a second. "...So?"

"Raven, you don't get it, do you?" He asked.

"I understand, Robin... I just don't care. Everything you've said and done doesn't change anything between us. If anything, it's just made us stronger. You have to trust me... You just have to believe me on this one. You'll heal, and we'll protect this city together." She reached out her hand for his, glancing into his eyes as far as his mask would allow. "What do you say?"

_**I'm living for the only thingI know,  
I'm running and not quite sure where to go.  
Idon't know what I'm diving into,  
Just hanging by a moment here with you.**_

_**There's nothing else to lose,  
Nothing left to find.  
There's nothing in the world,  
That could change my mind.  
There is nothing else,  
There is nothing else...**_

_She's forgiving me... _He was full of a numb shock, almost disbelif. "You're too nice for your own good, Raven," he whispered as he extended his green-gloved hand to touch hers lightly, feeling her fingers close around his as she refused to look away.

"Does it really matter? You're obviously not going to forgive yourself," she replied, standing close to him as the rain picked up again. "You just need to let go, Robin. Everything that's occured doesn't matter."

"I'm still a murderer. I've still hurt people... Slade was right about me all along."

"You're going to let him get to you? After everything that's happened?" She pulled her hand away from his now and folded her arms around her chest. "Slade is gone, Robin. Accept it and forget what he said."

"He was right, Raven. I'm not a hero. I've hurt people and... I've hurt you."

"Then he was also right when he said love couldn't save me, I suppose?" Pain came to her eyes. "He was right when he made the point that I'm just like my father, doomed to kill and destroy everything and everyone I've loved, and that I'll never come to have anyone in my life I would die for?" Her voice heated with emotion with every word she spoke and her eyes shimmered with the strange pain.

"Raven, you know I didn't mean..." He moved closer, only to have her step back.

"It's not worth it if I'm just going to keep running away from everything, especially if I'm not sure where to run. If I can't run to the hero I love because I can't run and he's not a hero, then what do I have left?"

"Raven... There's nothing in the world that could make me change my mind about you." He paused. "You are a good person. When are you going to understand Slade was wrong about you?"

"When are you going to understand Slade was wrong about you?" She challenged, moving back against him in spite of herself and wrapping him in her arms. "When are you going to let everything be the way it was again?"

_I really don't know what I'm getting into here..._

_**Desperate for changing,  
Starving for truth.  
Closer whereI started,  
Chasing after you.**_

_**I'm falling even more in love with you,  
Letting go of all I've held onto.  
I'm standing here until you make me move,  
I'm hanging by a moment here with you.**_

"You know I'd like to believe that. But the way I felt back there... Like my mind was numb, like it was worth it to actually hurt someone... I'm afraid. What if I become like that again? What if I hurt you, or Starfire, or Beast Boy, or Cyborg, or...?"

"It doesn't mean you're an uncaring person," she said, gently wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "You justlost your cool for a little bit, it doesn't mean you're a bad person." Her voice never changed, and Robin almost couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"You're right," he consented finally, leanin against her, and they were silent for several minutes.

"Raven?"

"Yes?"

"I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too, Robin."

"I'm not going to let go of this," he whispered. "I'm not going to leave again. I'm going to be the kind of leader you all think I am." He watched a smile come over her face.

"I'm glad you finally understand that." Several more seconds passed in silence, although it was not uncomfortable or awkward. "It's been a long time... Do you want to go back inside?"

"We might as well. We've got a lot to do," he replied with a smile as she took his hand.

"Wait... I have a question to ask you first," Raven said, although she was shivering from cold and her face was drawn tightly from being outside too long.

**_I'm living for the only thing I know,  
I'm running and not quite sure where to go.  
I don't know what I'm diving into  
Just hanging by a moment here with you._**

**_Just hanging by a moment.  
Hanging by a moment.  
Hanging by a moment...  
Hanging by a moment here with you._**

"What, Raven?" Robin asked, turning to look at her in mid-stride. She had stopped, still holding onto his hand, and, despite her smile, she still looked cold and rather lost. _What if she wants to tell me to back off, or that we should just be friends, or...? _His mind raced with all the possiblities of things that she could say- And so he was rather taken aback when she actually asked her question.

"Are you going to try to become Dick Grayson and leave us again, or is the Robin I've missed and loved all this time back?" While he gripped with his memory, she moved forward, releasing his hand only when she was extrememly close to him.

_I didn't mean to hurt her... _However, his throat was tight and closed, and he couldn't get the words out. Even as he stood there trying, however, her hands came up to first touch his mask lightly, then find his carefully tied knot and begin to work at undoing it.

Normally Robin might have resisted, shoved her hands away or told her to get off, but between the way her hands felt against his skin- Cool and yet alive- and the way her eyes looked- painfully haunting- he could not bring himself to turn away. The water came in contact with his eyes and he blinked- He was now looking directly into her intense violet eyes clearly for the second time ever.

"Do you know where you're going this time? Or are you going to run away from us again?" She held the mask between her thumb and forefinger and stared him down. "Are you going to leave all you've known for an unknown fate? Or will you promise me, in this moment, that you won't run away again?"

He blinked his brillent blue eyes once, twice, and then stared back at her. "I promise... I'm going to stay here with you forever. I'm Robin; Dick is a broken identity."

She hugged him. "Okay, that's what I wanted to hear." And with that, she shreaded the mask with her mind. "You won't need that anymore, Robin. You hid your idenity with it... But if it's gone, what have you to fear?"

He reached over and took one of the pieces. "I think I'd like to keep it," he whispered, and she nodded with understanding. The two of them began to go back toward the Tower, understanding flooding between them.

"Robin..."

_Another question? _"Yes Raven?'

"Nothing... I just like to say the name of my hero," she replied with a smile.

"I'm not the only hero," she whispered, and he smiled and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her waist as she brought her arms up to his shoulders. The kiss lasted several minutes, and when they pulled apart it was with smiles, Raven snuggling close to his side as they walked up to the tower.

"Slade was wrong," Raven said suddenly. "Love really will save me." Robin smiled- Even if he didn't understand the statement, it obviously set her mind at peace. "I love you, Raven," he replied, and her face responded clearly enough to that.

**_I'm a hero, _**he found himself thinking.

They stopped on the thresehold and watched the rain fall for a moment, then turned to head inside, to where they lived, to where everything would be waiting for them. "The home of a hero..."

"And I'll be right here whenever something goes wrong," Raven assured him quietly, talking his hand as they stepped inside Titan's Tower.

Life and love awaited them, but no moment would be too hard for two heros to pull through.

**...END...**

_Song: Hangin' By A Moment by Lifehouse. Thank you to all those of you who have loved this story, read it, critizized it, and of course, helped me toward my goal of becoming an author. I'm glad to have been able to entertain you in at least some way._

_I hope to continue to hear from you in reviews. They mean the world to me._

_And Chris... Well, I hope you liked this story as much as anybody, since it was for you._

_-Goddess_

_Started: 12/19/04  
Completed: 10/10/05_


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